Further concerns raised over children's committee

Concerns about how children have been removed from families led a senior church figure to resign from the body that oversees children's services in Herefordshire.

Sam Pratley, who was a co-opted, external member of Herefordshire Council's children and young people scrutiny committee, has spoken to the BBC about his decision to step down.

He also said the committee had been "in the dark" over issues such as a serious case review.

Herefordshire Council has defended the work of the committee and said it would not comment on reasons why a committee member may choose to resign.

In 2022, the council's children's services department was rated inadequate by Ofsted.

Children's commissioner Eleanor Brazil, who was appointed to investigate failings, said last month the authority was struggling to address long-standing problems.

Mr Pratley, diocesan secretary and chief executive of the Diocese of Hereford, who served on the committee for five years, previously said he had been "horrified" by families' concerns.

He said: "The things I'm particularly concerned about are the individual cases around families and children where children have been removed from families, and the experience of those families and the decision-making processes.

"It's a huge decision to decide that a child can no longer remain with the family, and that decision should only be made when we've absolutely met all of the thresholds."

Mr Pratley said the committee should receive all the concerns in the authority in order to carry out its scrutiny role, adding: "The scrutiny panel currently only receives a report based on whatever topic the officers decide is the topic."

He said that had left him in a situation where he knew there was a serious case review taking place, but the committee was not being told about the findings.

"It was completely in the dark," he said, "and that's not a safe space for a scrutiny group to be able to oversee the performance of a local authority."

Families who had listened to the committee meetings had heard things that were said by officers and had told him that some of it was not true, he said.

When he raised this with officers, he said, he did not get answers, adding: "It's very difficult to get under the skin of what's really happening."

There were people at the authority who were trying and did care and there was "good intention", he said.

But he said there had been a succession of changes and the council had not been helped by the fact it had struggled to recruit staff for key roles, particularly social workers.

Herefordshire Council said the children and young people scrutiny committee played an important role in reviewing and scrutinising its children's services, policies and decisions.

A statement issued by the local authority said: "The committee has been, and continues to be, instrumental in holding the council to account for the effective implementation of children's services improvement plan."

It added: "We can confirm that all decisions made with regards to child safeguarding reviews are shared with the national panel and all reviews undertaken are subsequently published on the Herefordshire Safeguarding Boards website."

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