Write to your MP

If you are concerned about the abuses at St. Benedict's School, and the fact that the Independent School Inspectorate failed to detect the school's shortcomings, please write to your MP along the following lines.

Change the first paragraph as necessary if you live at such a distance from St. Benedict's that no pupils are likely to live in your MP's constituency.

I am sure that the children of some of your constituents are pupils of St Benedict's School Ealing, and that you have been as shocked as anybody else at the terrible abuses there which have recently been reported by Lord Carlile.

It is highly probable that the abuses could have been discovered earlier had the school been effectively inspected. However, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) completely failed to notice any problems with safeguarding at the school for at least two successive routine inspections in 2003 and 2009.

The Thunderer column in the Times today points out the severe shortcomings of the ISI in respect of safeguarding inspection, and also points out severe shortcomings in the law, in that unbelievably there is no statutory obligation on the part of schools to report allegations or incidents of child sex abuse committed by staff on pupils.

The Education Bill currently going through Parliament includes a clause which would enable the DfE to appoint the ISI to inspect welfare at independent boarding schools (those which are members of the Independent Schools Council). This responsibility is currently held by OFSTED. Baroness Brinton spoke forcefully against this extension of the ISI's powers in the Grand Committee of the House of Lords,.

In the face of the ISI's terrible failure to detect gross shortcomings at St. Benedict's School and elsewhere, and given that boarding school pupils are even more vulnerable to their setting than day school pupils, the last thing that should be happening is for the ISI's responsibilities to be extended to include the welfare of boarding school pupils.

I urge you to support the amendment introduced by Baroness Walmsley and Baroness Brinton, and to oppose any further extension of the ISI's responsibilities.

Email this to your MP, sign your email and give your postal address, so your MP knows you are a constituent.

The Thunderer

The Thunderer column in the Times carries a piece today (behind paywall) arguing that the St. Benedict's abuse scandal could happen elsewhere because of weaknesses in the law.

There ought to be a legal obligation to report every allegation of abuse to child protection officials in the local authority. The statutory guidance does not at present insist that abuse allegations be brought to the attention of the local authority-designated officer for safeguarding; merely that this “should” be done.


There is simply too much temptation for private schools, which have reputations and fee levels to protect, to attempt to deal with damaging allegations in-house and on the quiet, as St Benedict’s did. This allows perpetrators to operate with impunity or to be discreetly moved on, potentially to offend elsewhere.

The Thunderer goes on not only to criticise shortcomings in the law, but also the failings of the inspectors who visited St. Benedict's School.

Nor does Lord Carlile convincingly tackle the failings of the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), which praised the “high quality” of welfare at St Benedict’s in November 2009. Just a few months later, after revelations in The Times about the conviction of a monk who had lived at the school, the inspectors were forced to return. Only then did they discover that a “commitment to trust within the community and to St Benedict’s rule of love and forgiveness appears on occasion to have overshadowed responsibility for children’s welfare”. After years of widespread abuse, this is a dramatic understatement.

The column wraps up by pointing out that the law is about to change to allow the ISI to perform welfare inspections of independent boarding schools, and suggests that far from doing this, the DfE ought to be looking to see if ISI is going its present job properly.

I think the Times has a good point. The pupils of boarding schools are even more vulnerable to their setting than the pupils of independent day schools. Of all schoolchildren, the pupils of boarding schools need an effective safeguarding regime, properly inspected. On the evidence of St. Benedict's, there is no reason to think that the ISI is capable of this.

The ISI

From today's Times

The Department For Education was asked by the Independent Schools Council (ISC), the current owners of ISI, for the extra powers to be transferred to the private school inspectors.

The change would allow ISC boarding schools to have a single inspection of their education and welfare instead of two separate visits by inspectors from the ISI and Ofsted.

This change would hand over the job of doing welfare inspections on ISC boarding schools from OFSTED to the ISI. The article says:

Ofsted, which monitors the work of the ISI in day schools, said ISI inspectors needed more training on reporting of safeguarding.

The watchdog said more evidence was required in ISI reports to “explain convincingly why aspects of a school’s work have been judged ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ despite the presence of regulatory failures which have the potential for significant impact on pupils’ welfare”.

The conclusion, in a recent report on the work of the ISI, has raised fears about the inspectorate’s capacity to take over the inspection of welfare in independent boarding schools from Ofsted, a transfer planned for January.

This proposal to extend the powers of the ISI is a section of the Education Bill currently going through Parliament. This is the ISI that inspected St Benedict's School in November 2009 and said the following about safeguarding at the school.

The trustees and advisers are fully aware of, and diligent in discharging, their responsibilities for the welfare, health and safety of pupils, including taking proper steps to review and evaluate the effectiveness of their child protection policies and procedures.

And in saying this, ISI managed not to notice that since their previous inspection there had been

• Three criminal convictions of John Maestri, all for indecent assaults against pupils at the school, dating from the time he was a teacher there.
• The conviction of Father David Pearce for a series of indecent and sexual assaults on pupils of the school over a 36 year period.
• A civil court judgement against the Abbey and Pearce in favour of an abused pupil, to the tune of £43,000.
• Two Statutory Inquiries by the Charity Commission.

And that at the time of the inspection, there was:

• A central register of appointments (where the CRB and other background checks on all staff are supposed to be recorded) which was incomplete.
• A safeguarding policy that was one long excuse for avoiding reporting incidents or allegations of abuse to the authorities.

This is a failure on a  truly epic scale. And we know that abuse, known to the Abbot of the time has been going on for a great many years and has gone unreported all this time. If it weren't for the failure of the ISI and its predecessors over decades, the abuses at St Benedict's would in all probability have come to light a great many years ago, and many boys would have been saved much suffering.

I'm particularly troubled by the fact that one of the inspectors on that November 2009 visit to St. Benedict's was Mr.Gino Carminati, the headmaster of Worth School. Yes, that's Worth School attached to Worth Abbey, also run by the Benedictines!

There was no mention in the report of the connection between Mr. Carminati and the school he was inspecting. I'm not suggesting any wrongdoing by Mr. Carminati. I don't suggest that he in any way deliberately contributed towards the school getting a better report than it deserved. It is just that if the reports are to be regarded as independent, then the inspectors must also be independent of the setting they are inspecting. In this case that was patently not so, and Mr. Carminati should quite frankly have been nowhere near St. Benedict's School for the purpose of inspecting it.

If you have children at private boarding school, may I suggest that you get in touch with your MP immediately, and lobby him or her to vote for the proposed amendment to the Education Bill that will remove the provision for ISI to take over welfare inspections of private boarding schools.

I have severe doubts about the competence of the ISI to do adequate welfare inspections even on day schools. To give them additional responsibility for welfare inspection of boarding schools is the sheerest folly. Perhaps if you have a child at an independent day school, you should also lobby your MP on this subject, with a view to ensuring that an effective welfare inspection scheme is put in place for all independent schools, both day and boarding.

Safeguarding and School Inspections

At 12:29, a commenter on the Interregnum thread asked the following

Will you be looking at all Schools child protection or just fee paying schools?
If you have a child at a paying school you can just get up and change schools,(although I do not think your readers do) but at state schools you have no choice, or is it your view that child protection problems only happen in fee paying schools?

That's a very good and intelligent question, and deserves a fuller and more prominent answer than can be fitted into a comment.

I'm well aware that child protection problems can occur in any variety of school, for instance at Dormers Wells High School in Ealing there have been two recent cases, one concerning a former caretaker and  another concerning a learning mentor. I don't doubt that there were shortcomings in the child protection measures there, which were missed by the inspectorates.

But there is a particular problem with private schools, which you describe when you say "you can just get up and change schools".

In fact, it's not quite as easy to change schools as you might think, especially if lots of other parents are trying to make the same change at the same time. Just imagine for a moment how many places are available mid-year or at the start of a year that isn't a normal intake year at the other private schools in this area. I've heard that some of the other local private schools have been inundated with enquiries from St A and St B parents, far more than they could possibly accommodate.

That means if you are sufficiently dissatisfied with your child's private school, your choice may be limited to keeping him or her there or moving into the state system, were the authorities are legally obliged to make a place available. So once you are in a private school, you are essentially stuck in the event of a serious problem there, unless you decide that the state system isn't all that bad a choice after all.

The issue of the relative merits of the state and private systems could be the subject of a long debate, which I don't have space to address here. All I would say is that the psychological effects of child sex abuse can be long-term and devastating to the victim. Your child's life chances are probably much better following a state education not involving abuse than a private education where your child is abused. Therefore, whatever your opinion of the state system in general, if you have reason to think that your child is at risk of being abused in his or her current private school, I would strongly recommend a move.

But even given the difficulties of moving schools once a pupil is established, a paedophile case can be terribly bad for business at a private school. We have had comments on this blog from parents who were thinking of sending their daughters to St Augustine's, and who thought better of it as a result of reading the ISI report and the comments here.

So there is a tremendous temptation for private schools to look after their own short-term business interests by keeping incidents or allegations of abuse quiet and not reporting them to the authorities, and so avoiding the attendant publicity. In doing so, I've heard of cases where the school has pressured the parents not to make their own independent reports to the police or social services, on the grounds that there is no need to further add to the distress of the child by subjecting them to interrogation by social services.

And so the parents are robbed of precisely the support and advice that they need in order to look after the welfare and best interests of their child. If this sort of thing is not going to be common within private schools, it is an absolute necessity that the chance that the school will be found out is high, and the penalty for this kind of deception is prohibitive. At a minimum, failure to take proper child protection measures in response to an allegation of sex abuse should cost the people responsible their careers in teaching. If headteachers of private schools realise that they aren't going to to keep their £100k jobs very long if they try to hide abuse, then reporting will become much better.

Don't think of this issue as being limited to Catholic schools. Certainly there has been abuse at some Catholic schools, but it is by no means unique to them. Intelligent paedophiles seek out jobs involving care of children,and so all schools need to be on their guard about this. The documentary Chosen describes in harrowing detail the abuses perpetrated on boys at Caldicot School, a secular private boarding school. If you want to understand the dynamics of abuse in a private school, how the children are groomed, how the teachers' position of authority over both the children and their parents is used to suppress reporting, and the devastating effect of abuse on the subsequent lives of the victims, then I cannot recommend strongly enough that you view that documentary. The whole programme can be viewed online at the link I have provided. When I looked it the programme, I found that there were very strong parallels between the abuse and grooming techniques described there, and the techniques used by Father David Pearce, as described in the prosecution's statement at his sentencing hearing in October 2009.

You need to understand how it works if you are to recognise warning signs that it might be happening at your children's school. And you need also to have some idea what to do about it if the warning signs are there.

St. Benedict's and St. Augustine's are absolutely perfect case studies for this. We have a great deal of documentation, sufficient to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt how abjectly the inspectorates have failed the pupils of those two schools. I'm in regular touch with Tom Perry of Questions4Schools, one of the participants in Chosen. He is campaigning to have these failings addressed at a national level, and I'm very happy to help him in any way possible. The FOI information mentioned in the comments may help this process on, and I would be very grateful if the person who obtained it would contact me on a private and confidential basis.

Spin

The letter to parents accompanying the ISI report on St. Augustine's was a wonder to behold. It was loaded with enough spin to make Graeme Swann want to come over and take lessons.

The first thing the headmistress did was to provide lots of nice little quotes about how wonderful the girls are. That is bound to create a nice warm impression with the parents - everybody likes to hear compliments directed towards their children.

Then she nicely conflated the Diocesan report with ISI report. The Diocesan report was published back in September. The only reason it was provided with the ISI report now was because the headmistress knew perfectly well how gruesome the ISI report would be, and needed a good report to balance it out.

I have to say that you can put no weight on the Diocesan report at all. Deacon Anthony Clark, the diocesan inspector, also recently inspected St. Benedict's School, and his reports on both the Senior School and the Junior School were just as gushing as his St. Augustine's report, even though they were carried out in July and December 2010, after the the problems of St. Benedict's had hit the national press, and even though Peter Turner, the diocesan safeguarding adviser, had known about the safeguarding shortcomings at St. Benedict's for several years prior to the inspection visit.

Now, I accept that the diocesan report is not supposed to be about safeguarding. It addresses the teaching of religious education and the extent to which the ethos of the school reflects that of the sponsoring religion.But it occurs to me that the ethos of a religion is communicated in part at least through the effectiveness by which its adherents live and act according to their religious principles. And a school which has shown to be as cavalier as St. Benedict's over the safety and welfare of its pupils surely merits some mention of the fact in the diocesan report? But there is none. So as far as I'm concerned, Deacon Anthony Clark's report deserves to be filed in the bin. Distributing it to parents was a waste of some perfectly good trees.

But the real masterpiece of the letter was how the headmistress minimised the criticisms in the ISI report. Here is the relevant paragraph.

Naturally no organisation is perfect. We continue to battle to keep up with our ever expanding use of ICT. Our Central Register of Appointments has been revamped and is now a thing of bureaucratic beauty. Our Child Protection (Safeguarding) Policy, revised at the time of the ISI inspection, has been completely re-written and is now, I hope, more user-friendly. In addition our Child Protection Committee has added three single page procedural flowcharts, providing readers with an instant over-view of steps to be taken. These will be reviewed each year to keep up with changing legislation. These policies and procedures can be viewed on our website or copies can be requested from the school office.

"Naturally no organisation is perfect". A very nice way of gliding over the fact that the school has been found to have been persistently breaking the law.

The first point she made, and the only real admission of any shortcoming, was to do with the struggle to use ICT effectively.

After that, she's congratulating herself at every opportunity. "Our Central Register of Appointments has been revamped and is now a thing of bureaucratic beauty" carefully avoids making any mention of the reason it had to be revamped. If you read the report, you learn that the reason is that it was in such a mess that it wasn't performing its primary function - to keep a record of the staff, their qualifications, references, identities, right to work in the UK and their CRB checks, as required by law.

Then we have "Our Child Protection (Safeguarding) Policy, revised at the time of the ISI inspection, has been completely re-written and is now, I hope, more user-friendly", which again skirts very carefully round the truth, which is that the policy was grossly inadequate, was hurriedly rewritten just in time for the ISI visit, was failed by the ISI and had to be rewritten all over again, and has only just been republished nearly a year later. She hopes that it is "more user friendly", as if that were its primary purpose., It isn't, the primary purpose is to ensure that procedures exist and are followed which serve to protect the children, as required by law.

Then we are told "These will be reviewed each year to keep up with changing legislation", as if that weren't a legal requirement anyway, and one which had been ignored up to now, and finally we are told "These policies and procedures can be viewed on our website or copies can be requested from the school office." which has been a legal requirement for some years, and is nothing to be all that proud of.

All this is designed to give the impression that everything is so wonderful at the school that you as parents really have no need to bother your little heads with the ISI report itself. Just file it unread and let the school carry on as before.

But in actual fact, I recommend you do read the report, very carefully, and take the trouble to understand what it is saying. I have described my understanding of it, but you should no more rely on my interpretation than that of Mrs Gumley Mason. Read the report for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

The St. Augustine's Report

Well, I now finally have it, a parent has sent it through to me, and I've had a good read. The most important page is page 4, which details the ways in which the school has failed to meet regulatory requirements - in effect the ways in which the school was breaking the law. Here is the text of the clauses from that page.

2.4 At the time of the initial visit, the school did not meet all the requirements of the Independent School Standards Regulations 2003, as subsequently amended, and therefore it was required to:

• ensure that any persons whose services are no longer used because they are considered unsuitable to work with children are always reported fully to the Independent Safeguarding Authority within one month of leaving the school
  [Regulation 3.(2)(b), under Welfare, health and safety];
• ensure that appropriate checks and central register entries are made on staff appointed since 1st May 2007
  [Regulations 4.(2)(a), 4.(2)(b), and 4C.(2)(b) and (d), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are always obtained and recorded for proprietors as necessary
  [Regulation 4C.(7), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed regarding staff appointed before 1st May 2007
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the facilities provided for pupils who are ill are appropriate
  [Regulation 5.(l), under Premises and accommodation].

2.5 At the time of the final team visit, the school had rectified some of the above shortcomings, as noted in the text of the report. However, the following requirements remain unresolved, and therefore the school must:

• ensure that all appropriate checks are made on newly appointed staff [Regulation 4.(2)(a), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];
• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors].

Let's look at these bullets in turn, and I'll put into plain English what they mean. Remember, if the requirement is to "ensure that xyz is done", what this means is that it wasn't being done by the school at the time of the inspection, but that it ought to have been.

• ensure that any persons whose services are no longer used because they are considered unsuitable to work with children are always reported fully to the Independent Safeguarding Authority within one month of leaving the school
  [Regulation 3.(2)(b), under Welfare, health and safety];

This first one is very serious. It is a requirement of the regulations that if a governor or member of staff resigns or is sacked when the school considers them unsuitable to work with children, then the ISA must be informed within a month of that person's departure. "Unsuitable to work with children" doesn't necessarily mean that the staff member has been convicted of a criminal offence (e.g. an indecent assault). It could be that the staff member has committed a disciplinary offence. There are a number of grounds on which a person can be considered unfit to supervise children.

The fact that the ISI is requiring that this be ensured means that they found that members of staff have left in such circumstances and the school has not notified the ISA! This means that members of staff who are considered unfit to supervise children are free to go on to take up posts elsewhere, and the reason for their departure from St. Augustine's doesn't show up when the subsequent CRB check with enhanced disclosure is made. It is obvious how this puts children in danger. They have just removed the danger from the school, without having any consideration for their responsibilities for the protection of society at large, or of their legal responsibilities.

For the ISI to state this so baldly, there must be more than one clear-cut case where referral to the ISA should have been made but wasn't. One clear case might have been accepted as being an oversight, one or more marginal cases might be regarded as a matter of reasonable differences in judgement. But the ISI is looking for a change in policy and procedure to "ensure" that this doesn't happen again in future. (In fact, section 4.6 of the report (on page 10) tells us that there were two identified cases of failure to report.)

• ensure that appropriate checks and central register entries are made on staff appointed since 1st May 2007
  [Regulations 4.(2)(a), 4.(2)(b), and 4C.(2)(b) and (d), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

This is a really basic safeguarding principle - you make sure that people known to be a danger to children don't get employed in a school in the first place. Teachers and other staff supervising children are required to undergo CRB checks with "enhanced disclosure", which means that events such as a previous school making a report to the ISA would be flagged up as well as criminal convictions.

But the ISI is clearly stating that the school isn't consistently doing this. It isn't a matter of just one or two checks being a bit late, or the school being a bit slow with making sure that they update their register with the checks that have been made. In other words, this isn't a minor bureaucratic slip-up. For the criticism to be this harsh, it must mean that a significant number of staff have either not been CRB checked at all, or have been permitted to work unsupervised before their CRB check has come through, or there has been a failure to adequately check identities, qualifications and references. The ISI hasn't stated in detail what the failings are, they have just said that the school had to ensure that it was all put right.

Again, if you know the language, this is a stinging criticism of the school and of its failure to assure the safety of the pupils.

• ensure that enhanced Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are always obtained and recorded for proprietors as necessary
  [Regulation 4C.(7), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

This means that the school has not obtained the necessary CRB checks for all the governors of the school and Trustees of the charitable company which is ultimately responsible for the school. Notice they say "obtained and recorded". So again this is not a minor bureaucratic record-keeping error. It seems that they have neglected even to obtain an enhanced CRB check for at least one of the governors or trustees. So not only have they not ensured that appointed staff are safe around children, they haven't done this either for the proprietors with the ultimate responsibility for running the school.

• ensure that the central register of appointments is correctly completed regarding staff appointed before 1st May 2007
  [Regulation 4C.(3), under Suitability of staff, supply staff and proprietors];

The rules are slightly different for staff who were appointed before that date. In May 2007 the rules were changed in that identity checks and checks for the right to work in the UK became necessary, foreign nationals had to have an enhanced CRB check, and additional checks had to be carried out on staff who had lived abroad if the CRB check is insufficient.

But the most important aspect of this point in the ISI report is that the central register of appointments is not even correct and complete for staff who have been at the school for some years. This isn't a minor bureaucratic delay in getting the records up to date - this means that the records haven't been adequately maintained for the last several years. If it weren't for the coincidence that the rules changed in 2007, I doubt that we would have been able to know that from the ISI report.

There is an implicit criticism of OFSTED here. The school has only recently joined the ISC, and so its last inspection in July 2006 was carried out by OFSTED, not ISI. And yet ISI is critical of arrangements going back to before May 2007. The OFSTED report of the July 2006 inspection (published in October 2006) had this to say about safeguarding.

The school’s child protection policy is up to date and implemented effectively. The headteacher is the responsible child protection officer. She is readily approachable to pupils and provides an inspirational role model of respect and care for pupils of all ages.

It is hard to believe that all the safeguarding problems have sprung up since July 2006 to the extent that the ISI is making criticisms concerning regulatory failings from before May 2007. Mrs Gumley Mason has been headteacher for much longer than that, so there is no reason for the quality of safeguarding arrangements to have suddenly gone downhill just at that time. But if the problems haven't sprung up suddenly, then OFSTED missed this entirely last time they visited - and who knows how many inspections previously have also missed it?

• ensure that the facilities provided for pupils who are ill are appropriate
  [Regulation 5.(l), under Premises and accommodation].

This is the one point where the ISI report is entirely clear what the regulatory failing was. On page 10, it indicates that at the time for the initial inspection there was no washbasin in the sick room, but that this failing has since been rectified.

The initial inspection took place on 23rd and 24th March 2010. The final team visit took place on 4-6 May 2010. By then (i.e. about 6 weeks later) some of these regulatory failings had still not been rectified. Specifically, CRB checks on new staff were still not being properly carried out, and the central register of appointments had still not been corrected. If the register was still not right even after six weeks, then that is further evidence that it was in a terrible mess before.

But the ISI indicates that the other regulatory failings have been rectified. This means that the school has now belatedly sent the two notifications to the ISA which should have been made concerning former staff members who are unfit to supervise children.

 In addition to these regulatory failings, there are a number of areas in which the school has been graded "unsatisfactory". The first of these areas is governance, leadership and management.

2.3 The quality of governance, leadership and management, whilst good in some aspects, notably in supporting high attainment and excellent personal development, is unsatisfactory overall because it has not ensured that safeguarding procedures and practice meet the required standard. The school has been slow to report teachers who may be unsuitable to work with children and its procedures for making and recording appointments have not been sufficiently rigorous. Relationships between governors and senior managers are good. Governors are committed to the school and give their time generously to become actively involved in its daily life. However, proprietors have not always been kept fully informed and have not questioned with sufficient rigour to enable them to fulfil all their responsibilities in respect of compliance with regulations. The systems for accountability within the leadership team are not sufficiently clear and, at the time of the initial inspection, leadership had not adequately discharged its responsibility for regulatory matters. Responses to the pre-inspection questionnaire indicate that the vast majority of parents and pupils are very happy with the school.

Let's unpack this. Safeguarding procedures aren't up to scratch (more on this later). In addition, the proprietors haven't been kept fully informed! The person responsible for informing the proprietors about safeguarding issues is the headteacher or the designated teacher for children. At St. Augustine's, Mrs. Frances Gumley Mason is both headteacher and designated teacher for child protection. The ISI are saying that she hasn't kept the proprietors informed, and that they haven't thought to demand information.

The next area marked down is welfare, health and safety.

4.6 The school's arrangements for welfare, health and safety, while good in some aspects, are unsatisfactory overall because the required appointment checks were not carried out and recorded and concerns about the suitability of two staff members were not reported to the appropriate authorities as required. The school acted quickly to take and act upon advice from safeguarding agencies in relation to the referrals. Good progress has since been made in the completion of the single central register of appointments.

It can hardly be graded other than unsatisfactory if there are relevant regulatory failings. But there is more on health and safety.

4.8 The school is compassionate and caring towards any vulnerable pupils. All employees, governors and volunteers are trained in child protection issues and there is an appropriate number of designated child protection officers; a number of senior staff have undertaken training in safe recruitment methods. Safeguarding issues also feature as a standing item on governors’ meeting agenda. The child protection policy, whilst good in some respects and containing useful guidance for staff, is unsatisfactory overall. In particular, it does not follow closely enough the statutory guidance in relation to the manner in which concerns are handled and reported, placing inappropriate emphasis on investigation by the school and not identifying clearly the proper threshold for referring concerns to other agencies such as the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). This has led to weaknesses in implementation. At the initial inspection visit, significant shortcomings in practice were identified with regard to the requirement to report to the appropriate authorities, within one month of leaving the school, any person whose services are no longer required because he or she is considered unsuitable to work with children.

So, the child protection policy was inadequate. The additional failing mentioned here is the same as was identified at St. Benedict's. The school was attempting to investigate allegations itself rather than referring them automatically to the LADO.

There are very good and important reasons why the school should not undertake its own investigations. First, there is a clear conflict of interest - the reputation of the school is damaged by a paedophile case, and so the temptation is to quietly investigate and find that there is no problem, and therefore no need to tell anybody about it. Second, the staff member who is being investigated will already be known to the headteacher and may have been appointed by her. The natural assumption for the headteacher is that such a person is unlikely to have done whatever is being alleged. And so the investigation is prejudiced at the outset by the preconceptions of the person supposedly investigating. From the information available in the report there is no way of knowing whether these failings have resulted in avoidable harm to children at the school.

The great advantage of automatic referral to the LADO is that the LADO is independent of the school. So he or she is in a better position to see whether the allegation warrants an investigation by the police or by Social Services. He or she is not going to be burdened with the belief that the teacher is a wonderful person who would never do such a thing.

It is noticeable that a brand-new safeguarding policy has just been published on the school website, ratified by the governors on 16th February 2011, or nearly 11 months after the initial visit from the inspectors which identified the safeguarding concerns. But even now the safguarding policy is not at clear as it should be on this topic.

The Ealing Safeguarding Children board Guidance says:
15.2.1 The employer must inform the local authority designated officer (LADO) immediately an allegation is made.

The St. Augustine's Safeguarding policy says:
When deciding whether to make a referral, following an allegation or suspicion of abuse, the Designated teacher will not make her own decision over what appear to be borderline cases, but rather the doubts and concerns should be discussed with the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). This may be done tentatively and without giving names in the first instance. What appears trivial at first may later be revealed to be much more serious and an allegation of child abuse or neglect may lead to a criminal investigation.

That seems like rather a lot of wriggle room is being inserted, in that the school is being given the option to decide what are borderline cases. Why can't the policy simply reflect the ESCB guidance and simply say "The Designated Teacher shall inform the LADO immediately an allegation is made."? Simple, to the point, and sets a clear requirement. It is then for the LADO to decide that the issue is trivial, borderline or whatever, and inform the school as to what action (if any) is appropriate. That is what the LADO is there for.

Then there is more on leadership and management

5.3 Leadership and management of the educational aspects of the school are mostly good but weaknesses in safeguarding practice make them unsatisfactory overall. The senior management team have worked well together and many improvements have been successfully made since the last inspection. These underpin pupils’ excellent personal development and good achievements. Senior managers generate a clear sense of commonality of purpose through their commitment to the school’s ethos; pupils know that they are cared for as individuals and not just on the basis of their academic achievements. The senior management team encourages in staff a sense of the school’s traditions and values. At the same time it is open to new developments in response to the girls’ interests, for example the inclusion of psychology in the A-level option choices.

5.4 Leadership at the highest level has relied heavily on informal procedures to identify and implement improvements. This approach, whilst effective for some management processes, does not provide a consistent mechanism for evaluating the success of new initiatives, for monitoring the implementation of policies or for driving strategic development based on earlier achievements. Weaknesses in the operation of recruitment checks and in the drafting and implementation of the child protection policy have resulted in inadequacies in safeguarding practice. However, good measures operate to ensure that all staff and volunteers are aware of and trained in their responsibilities concerning pupils’ safeguarding, welfare, health and safety.

There is something very curious about the use of language here. The report is reasonably complimentary about the "senior management team", but is rather critical of "leadership at the highest level". The ISI never names names in its reports when offering judgements, it only provides generalised indications of levels of management. But given that safeguarding is again the subject here, it is possible to decode this. The ISI is making specific criticism of the headmistress, who has this responsibility in her role as Designated Teacher for safeguarding.

Publication of this report has been delayed by several months. Normally an ISI report is published 3-4 months after the initial visit. The ISI has confirmed that publication was delayed by legal action. Why it is being published now is something of a mystery given how critical the ISI is of the school's safeguarding arrangements - admittedly in somewhat coded language. One can only wonder what the original draft report looked like.

The Headmaster's Newsletter

Well, the Febuary Newsletter has now been published. And now down in the corner of page 10 is a single paragraph about the Carlile Report.

The School has now fully implemented all the recommendations made in the follow-up Inspection report and we now await the report from the Independent Review on safeguarding commissioned by Fr Abbot. Lord Carlile has amassed a great volume of evidence and is now collating it before writing the report. It now seems unlikely that his report will be presented to Fr Abbot until the end of this term. You will be kept fully informed of any developments. We hope to have more news by the time of the Parental Forum in March.

This is remarkable, not so much as for what it says, but for what it doesn't say. Allow me to use my imagination to fill in some of the gaps.

The School has now fully implemented all the recommendations made in the follow-up Inspection report (but we aren't going to tell you what we have actually done to implement it, lest you try and compare it with the original recommendations and decide that we haven't done enough) and we now await the report from the Independent Review on safeguarding commissioned by Fr Abbot. Lord Carlile has amassed a great volume of evidence (despite our great efforts to ensure that publicity for the inquiry was absolutely minimal) and is now collating it before writing the report. It now seems unlikely that his report will be presented to Fr Abbot until the end of this term (but don't imagine that you will be allowed to see it then. We have no intention of publishing the report for a long time after that). You will be kept fully informed of any developments (but perhaps not by us). We hope to have more news by the time of the Parental Forum in March (actually, we hope to have no more news at all by then since every new bit of news on this subject seems to be bad).

In particular, the first statement seems very unlikely to be true. If you recall, the ISI recommendations were as follows

1. Ensure that any staff or members of the religious community live away from the school, if they are subject to allegations of misconduct related to safeguarding or convicted of wrongdoing.

Father Stanislaus Hobbs and Father Gregory Chillman are both still listed on the Abbey website as monks resident at the Abbey. Both have been placed on "restricted ministry", though I understand that "most of" the restrictions on Chillman have been lifted. So at best, it seems unlikely that this recommendation has yet been implemented in full.

2. Follow the advice given to render the safeguarding policy a model of excellence in its wording, implementation and review.

As parents you are in the position of trying to compare the school's actions (which have not been disclosed) against the ISI's detailed recommendations (which have also not been disclosed). Feeling confident that all is well? This the the safety of your sons and daughters we are talking about.

One thing is certain. The school's current child protection policy as published on the school website is still the one issued on 22 September 2010, which is decidedly not a model of excellence, as I have previously described. So, it is pretty clear that this action is not complete, if indeed they have even made a start on it.

3. Ensure that referrals are always made to the Independent Safeguarding Authority when appropriate. For historical cases, ensure that all relevant information is passed to the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

The one decently written clause of the school's current child protection policy is a requirement to notify the ISA if a teacher leaves or is sacked in circumstances where his or her fitness to supervise children is in question. But this recommendation makes it clear that this clause of the policy was ignored in practice. Now you are being given a general assurance that all is now well, and yet the policy has not been changed, you are given no information at all as to changes in practice that will ensure that the ISA is notified in future, and you have been given no information at all about how many historical notifications have now been made retrospectively.

Still feeling confident?

4. Give greater emphasis to safeguarding in the school personal, social, health and citizenship (PSHCE) programme and reflect this in the school improvement plan.

Have you seen the school improvement plan? It appears not to be a published document. So how can you tell whether this has been done? Does the improvement here achieve what you would regard as a reasonable degree of emphasis? How can you tell? Have you seen the new PSHCE curriculum?

Still confident?

5. Emphasise awareness raising and training in safeguarding across the whole community of school, Abbey and parish, with formal contact between the child protection officers.

Do you realise that the Ealing Abbey website still does not have a safeguarding policy for the Abbey and Parish? The Safeguarding information page contains the following procedure-free statement.

The Parish of St Benedict, Ealing Abbey, is committed to the Safeguarding policies of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, to take all reasonable steps to protect children, young people and vulnerable adults from any form of abuse or maltreatment and to promote a safe environment for them. This commitment flows from the fact that we are all made in the image of God and the Church's common belief in the dignity and uniqueness of every human life. We start from the principle that each person has a right to expect the highest level of care and protection, love, encouragement and respect that we can give. We will liaise closely and openly with statutory agencies to ensure that any concerns or allegations of abuse that are raised are promptly reported and properly responded to, victims supported and perpetrators held to account.

But a pious statement of intent does not make a policy. There are no procedures. Admittedly that page does include a link to the website of the CSAS procedures, but there is no undertaking to ensure that they are followed, and even if there were, there is no means of ensuring this, since the CSAS procedures are general rather than specific to the individual setting, do not allocate responsibility to named individuals (they can't, being general) and clearly state that they are regularly updated, so nobody is in a position to know what their responsibilities are supposed to be, unless they review every page of  the procedures on a weekly basis. And the procedures are split across literally dozens of pages. It is one of the most user-unfriendly websites it has ever been my misfortune to have to navigate.

The civil action successfully brought by C occurred in January 2006. It is now five years on, and still it seems that the response of the trustees remains characterised by foot-dragging allied to the hope that the problem will all somehow just go away.

Holding breath at St. Augustine's

The ISI report for St. Augustine's Priory School still hasn't been published. I was discussing this extraordinary state of affairs with friends, and about the only thing we can think of that would cause such a delay is if the school has taken legal action against the ISI to prevent or at least delay publication. There's no reason to think that the DfE has lost confidence in the ISI, since they are intending adding to ISI's responsibilities, by transferring the responsibility for inspections for welfare of boarding school pupils at ISC member schools from OFSTED to ISI.

So I phoned Durell Barnes at the ISI to ask him about the current situation. The conversation was brief, but in its own way most illuminating. This isn't a verbatim transcript, but it went something like this.

JW: I notice that the St Augustine's report has not yet been published?
DB: No it hasn't.
JW: Do you know when it will be?
DB: No.
JW: Do you know why it hasn't been published yet?
DB: All I can say is that it will be published as soon as possible.
JW: It has been suggested to me that the reason for the delay is that the school took legal action against the ISI to prevent or delay publication. Can you tell me whether that is true?
DB: I can't add to what I have already said.
JW: I'll take that as a "yes" then.
DB: (silence)

Quite clearly, the publication date is not under the control of the ISI. If there were no court action, I'm sure that Durell Barnes would have had no difficulty in saying that there was no action. For one reason or another, it seems that Durell Barnes is unable to confirm the action, but to deny it would put him and the ISI in an impossible situation. His only option therefore was to remain silent.

The only situation that I can think of that fits the facts available at the moment is that the report is so devastatingly bad that the school (despite the headteacher suggesting in July that she was urgently looking forward to publication) has decided to take the ISI to court to suppress the report. If this is the case, then the judgement will be published in due course and a copy will undoubtedly be made publicly available.

If this has happened, then the school must already be in possession of an advance copy of the report, otherwise they wouldn't have known that they would want to take action.

If the school thinks that the ISI report is unfair, then they could and should have told the parents what they thought. After all, it is charitable funds, ultimately coming from school fees, that would be paying for this legal action.

Let's have a think about the timing. The inspection took place in April. Under normal circumstances the report is made available about 3 months after the inspection, so that would be sometime in July. Two weeks notice of publication. That would be sufficient to get a quick temporary injunction against publication, with a date set for a hearing as to whether the report was so unfair that publication should have been prevented. Maybe three months provided for both sides to prepare their cases, which would mean a High Court hearing in October, perhaps November. It usually takes three months or so for the judgement to be published - this wouldn't be an unduly complex case. So we may be expecting publication any day now. I shall be keeping a close eye on the publication of judgements from the relevant division of the High Court.

But all this is theorising. I don't have any certain knowledge of any legal action. But any parent could reasonably phone the school and ask what is the cause of the delay, whether the school has received an advance copy of the ISI report yet, and whether the school has taken any action that will have contributed to the delay in publication. If you ask, I would be fascinated to learn what the answer is. So I suspect would the other parents.

Little Ted's

From today's Guardian website.

Poor regulation, inadequate staff training and a lack of supervision created an "ideal environment" in which nursery worker Vanessa George could abuse children in her care, a serious case review concluded today. The regulator Ofsted was criticised for not picking up concerns about Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth, where George sexually assaulted infants.

Members of the Plymouth Safeguarding Children Board, which carried out the review, found the inspection regime was a "tick box" exercise and called for the government to look at the way checks are carried out by the regulator.

It's worth remembering that Ofsted is responsible for quality assessment of the ISI, who carried out successive inspections of St. Benedict's School without finding anything amiss. Coincidence? I think not.

And Ofsted has recently praised the quality of the ISI's inspections.

What a joke!

Ofsted has just issued a notice in which it pats itself and the other inspectorates on the back for all the good work they are doing.

Ofsted has praised the quality of inspections carried out by the three inspectorates (other than Ofsted) that inspect independent schools - and advised them on how to continue improving their inspection services.

...


In our recent letters to the inspectorates, Ofsted noted that all inspectorates were operating well and met the standards for an approved inspection body in independent schools.

Ofsted also recognised the expertise of the lead inspectors across all the inspectorates, the good evidence base they gathered to substantiate judgements, their good communication and engagement with schools and the fact they all took safeguarding very seriously. Their reports were clear and useful to schools.

In the 2010 report letter on the quality of the inspections and reports by the ISI, written by Christine Gilbert, HM Chief Inspector of Schools (i.e. the head of Oftsed) to Christine Ryan, Chief Inspector of the ISI, Gilbert is full of praise for the professionalism and efficiency of the ISI inspectors. The letter was written on 25th August 2010. It makes no mention of safeguarding or child protection. It makes no mention of any shortcomings in this area, with respect to St, Benedict's or any other school (and there have been failings at other schools as well).

This is praise for the ISI inspectors who completely missed the clear regulatory failings in the Child Protection Policy at St. Benedict's School, and who only noticed that there were any problems when they made a further visit at the insistence of the DfE, who had in turn been told by a member of the public (i.e. me) about convictions of former teachers during the current inspection period.

What a joke. What a sick joke.

From inside the meeting

I've now had some excellent reports from parents about the meeting. I was amazed by some of the things that were said. I can't cover everything that I've been told, so I'm just going to address a few key points.

One of the first points that Mr Cleugh apparently made was to the effect that the ISI's issues primarily revolved whether the school automatically passed allegations of abuse to the authorities without "investigation". As I understand it, Mr Cleugh claimed that of course the school has always referred all cases (or was it nearly all cases?), and that the "investigation" carried out by the school is just a basic check to see whether there is any issue to refer. He claimed that the issue with the ISI boiled down to a semantic one of whether this should actually be called an "investigation" in the the Child Protection Policy, and that he was able to make the child protection policy fully compliant by minor edits replacing "investigated" wherever it occurred with some other form of words..

If I've understood this correctly, then this is absolute rubbish. Mr Cleugh has accurately described the change he made in the May 2010 version of the policy, but it is decidedly not the case that the Child Protection Policy stated that all cases will automatically be referred. This is paragraph 23 of the May 2010 version of the policy.

23. Referral guidelines: A referral to the SSD or police will not normally be made where:

• a referral would be contrary to the wishes of a pupil complainant who is of sufficient maturity and understanding and properly informed, and contrary also to the wishes of the complainant's parents; and
• the case is one that can be satisfactorily dealt with under the School's internal procedures, the parents being kept fully informed, as appropriate.

However, if during the course of the internal procedures and the procedures required under paragraph 5, it appears that the situation is more serious, the Designated Teacher will again consider whether a referral should be made in accordance with paragraph 22 above.

This is not a form of words which indicates a policy of automatic referral. The referral doesn't happen if against the wishes of the pupil, or if the school's internal procedures (whatever they are) can handle it. I've analysed this paragraph in more detail elsewhere. This is far from the only example of text which provides for substantive decisions before a referral is made. Look back through past articles on this blog. I've analysed the child protection policy paragraph by paragraph, starting here. Then make up your own mind as to whether this was a policy of automatic referral.

Interestingly, and apparently as a result of the DfE's intervention, this paragraph has been changed. In the September 2010 edition of the policy, it now reads as follows:

23. Referral guidelines
Our policy is to refer all matters of concern to the Social Services Department.

Much better. But there are other related paragraphs that haven't yet been brought into line with this. The Designated Teacher is normally the person supposed to make the referral, and yet paragraph 22 still doesn't specify what the Designated Teacher must do on receiving a report. Instead, paragraph 22 gives a long list of things that the Designated Teacher "will take into account". I've analysed the May 2010 version of para 22 in more detail here. Some items in the bullet list in the September 2010 version have been changed, and so the current version is somewhat improved. But it still has this fundamental weakness.

And as for Mr. Cleugh's claim that the school actually always reports cases, this is not borne out by the ISI's findings. This is what the ISI says about the reporting of allegations

The allegations against Fr DP were referred to social services by the school following disclosure by a pupil. The school’s safeguarding records since 2003 do not mention any other report to social services in connection with concerns related to staff, volunteers, trustees or monks. All have been family or other matters. Safeguarding contacts have also been maintained with the Westminster Diocesan Safeguarding Commission. The Abbot made a statement disclosing the cases of Fr DP and another monk, and each headmaster issued copies in March 2006, with covering letters to parents.

The rules on reporting apply to governors and Trustees just as much as they do to staff. And yet, since 2003 Father Stanislaus Hobbs has been arrested and tried and Father Gregory Chillman investigated. Both have resigned as Trustees. And yet no records of any referrals concerning them (or any other staff member or trustee) were found by the ISI or produced by the school.

The rules are even more strict about resignations or sackings in circumstances where a person's suitability to be in charge of children is in question. Since about 1959 it has been a statutory requirement for a school to return a Notification to the authorities (used to be to the Department for Children Schools and Families, now it is to the Independent Safeguarding Authority) describing the circumstances. This is what the ISI report stated about this matter.

At the time of the follow-up inspections, the school did not have a fully established policy for reporting directly to the Department for Education and Skills (later the Department for Children, Schools and Families, and currently the Department for Education) or to the Independent Safeguarding Authority, responsible for such referrals since 20 January 2009. The advisability of making such referrals is now clearly understood even when there may not be a strict legal obligation to do so, and an historical referral was made in May 2010.

 In fact, this is not quite true. The school does have a written policy on this. This is the last paragraph of Section 26.

If the School ceases to use the services of a member of staff (or a governor or volunteer) because they are unsuitable to work with children, a compromise agreement will not be used and there will be a prompt and detailed report to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. Any such incidents will be followed by a review of the safeguarding procedures within the School, with a report being presented to the Governors without delay.

This is perfectly clear and in fact is one of the few well-written parts of the Child Protection Policy. There's just one small problem: in the cases of Hobbs and Chillman, they didn't follow the policy.

Now, this is a very serious matter. It means that not only was the school's policy seriously inadequate, but the school didn't even bother to follow the bits of it that are clear.

Let us be perfectly blunt about this. In failing to make those Notifications, the school has broken the law. So merely getting the school's written policies into a fit state will not guarantee that the school will actually follow the policies.

Next is the issue of Father Stanislaus Hobbs. He is living in the monastery under restricted covenant, imposed because he was considered a danger to children. The ISI made this issue the subject of its first recommendation.

1. Ensure that any staff or members of the religious community live away from the school, if they are subject to allegations of misconduct related to safeguarding or convicted of wrongdoing.

I understand that the Abbot gave a long speech on how Father Stan is old, unable to live by himself, that finding alternative accommodation for him is not easy and that the Abbot is negotiating with the ISI and DfE to gain their agreement to an exemption in his case. That may all be so, and ultimately the ISI and DfE might agree to an exemption. But until it is agreed, it is grossly misleading for Anthony Nelson, the school's solicitor, to have told The Times in August that the school was fully compliant with the ISI's requirements when he knew perfectly well that this issue had not been resolved. It think it's not unreasonable simply to call this a lie.

I'd now like to address the idea that almost all the cases are historical and needn't concern current parents. As I understand it, this line was pushed pretty consistently throughout the meeting. But a parent rather pricked the balloon when he asked whether there had been any cases in the last 12 months other than those referred to in the ISI report. It appears that Mr. Cleugh hesitated somewhat before admitting that a teacher is currently suspended while an investigation is carried out concerning child abuse allegations. He quickly went on to say that Social Services have been brought in, but the police are not interested that it is not a criminal matter, that the children are all entirely safe, and while the investigation is continuing he can't provide further details.

To a degree I can have some sympathy with this. But that sympathy doesn't extend to condoning the claims he had made only a few minutes earlier that we were primarily dealing with matters that had occurred 20 years ago. Don't make claims that aren't true, especially about the safety of children. Parents are apt to get rather upset about it. By the sound of it, the effect on the parents of Mr Cleugh's admission could hardly have been greater had a bomb gone off next door.

Unless the policies are perfectly clear, and they are properly implemented, then there is a very great risk that a new long-term paedophile could get onto the staff, or even still be on the staff undetected. After all, if the trust has lost a third of its Trustees to paedophile abuse in the last five years, what is the probability that there are really no abusers amongst the staff? No doubt part of the reason Father David Pearce was able to carry on abusing for so long (36 years) is that some at least of those around him on hearing rumours disbelieved them because they believed that somebody like him would never do such a thing. There is no profile for paedophile abusers. They can be from any social class, any occupation, any level of intelligence, any creed or colour. In fact the intelligent and socially respectable ones are the most dangerous, because they can work themselves into positions of trust where they do damage to very many children. The reason that automatic referral to Social Services is so vitally important is that they won't know the alleged perpetrator, and so will not be burdened by the belief that he is a splendid fellow who would never hurt a fly, let alone a child.

And what is this about wanting to keep the press out as it is a private meeting? Child protection is a very serious issue, and if the school is as thoroughly in the clear as the headmaster and the Abbot were trying to suggest, then they should have welcomed the press in to hear the parents' questions and their answers. but they didn't do that. They even barred parents of former pupils from attending.

If they have nothing to hide, why has the Abbot repeatedly refused my requests to meet him? And if the school gives such priority to making the Child Protection a model of excellence, why did the Abbot and headmaster ignore my email to them commenting on problems with the child protection policy last November?

Then there is the issue of the Inquiry by Lord Carlile. There seems to be a fundamental contradiction here. If the problems of the school are as minor as Mr. Cleugh was apparently suggesting, then why call in such a major establishment figure to conduct an inquiry? I dread to think how much Lord Carlile will be costing the school - probably something approaching the fees of 20 senior school pupils for the whole year. The school would never voluntarily spend such a sum of money which could otherwise be spent on improved sports facilities for instance. So I do rather wonder who has been twisting the Abbot's arm about this, and therefore who has sufficient concerns to think that such a major and expensive step is necessary. It's obviously not the parents, because the inquiry was decided on before any parents knew about the ISI report. It can hardly be the Trustees, since the Abbot was standing alongside Mr. Cleugh when he was energetically minimising the problem. I would be surprised if it were the ISI, because if they had made such a demand it would have been included in their report. By process of elimination, the obvious candidate is the DfE. It rather suggests they take an extremely dim view of the situation at the school.

I've written a line-by-line analysis of that the ISI supplementary report says and means. Read it for yourself and decide whether you think the school has been open with you.

• The ISI Supplementary Report - 1 (Introduction and situation at the time of the inspection)
  
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 2 (Reporting, and responsibilities of Trustees)
  
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 3 (Regulatory requirements)
• The ISI Supplementary Report - 4 (Recommandations)

I'd like to close with one last important point. You cannot guarantee that a school will forever remain free of abusive staff. The discovery of an abuser on the staff should not necessarily be regarded as a failure by the school. What matters is how quickly the abuse is detected, and how effectively the alleged abuser is removed from contact with children. An abuse case might be picked up very quickly and dealt with effectively, in which case parents should regard that as a success for the school, a demonstration that the safeguarding procedures work. I wish I could say that the safeguarding procedures at St. Benedict's meet that description. If in future they do, then I will be the first to cheer.

But at the moment they fall far short, and the headmaster and the Abbot are trying to kid you otherwise. They are playing word-games with the safety of your children. It is for you to decide if you are going to put up with that.

Outside the Safeguarding meeting

I was outside St Benedict's School last night aiming to hand out cards to parents. I was with a couple of friends, I'll call them S and J. J had a video camera with him.

I briefed the others carefully: we will not set foot in the grounds, we will not attempt to obstruct anybody, we will remain on the public highway, we will stand at the exits and offer a card to anybody willing to take it, but not press the matter. I advised J in particular that his job was to record. Even in the unlikely event that I got roughed up, he was under no circumstances to get involved, but merely to record the entire incident.

The cards had a very simple message.

Is your child really safe at St. Benedict's?
Read the facts about the ISI report
http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/

The parents' meeting started at 7.30, and we arrived in the vicinity soon after. We did a bit of a recce and worked out that the only two open exits were the vehicle exit on Marchwood Crescent and the pedestrian exit on Eaton Rise, so we agreed that I would cover Marchwood Crescent, S would cover Eaton Rise, and J would stand on the corner of the two streets with his video camera and would film in either direction as required.

There was very obvious security on the entrances both in Eaton Rise and Marchwood Crescent, and of course they soon realised that we were hanging around. Security came out to talk to S at the Eaton Rise exit. J was accosted at the bus shelter on the corner and replied monosyllabically in a deliberately thick Geordie accent - they quickly left him alone.

A security man came out and recognised me at the entrance on Marchwood Crescent, and said "Good evening Mr West, such a pity you've not been allowed in. Still, you might get a few more hits" I replied that it didn't bother me in the slightest. He went in again, and in due course, no fewer than three of them came back out to confront me. I said "Good evening gentlemen", and they replied "Good evening Mr. West"

They went on to tell me that I was not permitted on the school grounds. I replied that I was surprised that the school was so scared of me that they felt it necessary to send three people out to tell me that. They said (of course) that they weren't scared, but I think the point got made!

I said that I had no intention of entering the grounds, and that I trusted that they would do nothing to stop me from going about my lawful business on the public highway. One of them (who looked like a bruiser of a nightclub bouncer) seemed to be itching for an an opportunity to get physical, but the leader said that in that case there would be no trouble. J had by this time seen that there was a conversation going on with them standing rather close to me, and was walking up towards us to get a better shot. The leader, seeing him, said "And you can send your heavy home as well." I replied "Oh, you needn't worry about him, he just has a camera." They beetled off inside very quickly!

A bit later they came outside again, and one said to another "I want you to come and witness this - there is illegal filming going on, I'm being filmed illegally". But they didn't attempt to call the police, and we ignored them.

At about 9.45pm everyone came trooping out. I offered a card to anybody that was willing to take one. No chance of giving one to anybody coming out in a car, the security people were waving the drivers on very insistently, and I wasn't going to have them accuse me of obstructing the exit, but I managed to hand out cards 15-20 to people coming out on foot. S told me that she managed roughly the same number at Eaton Rise.

There was nobody else outside, just the three of us. No press, no TV cameras, just a parent of a former pupil and two friends. The security people seemed rather disappointed at not having more to do.

More on the Safeguarding meeting

I'll have lots to report about the Safeguarding meeting at St Benedict's School in due course, but in the meantime, if any parents (or others) present at the meeting on Tuesday evening have anything they would like to say about it - what was said, what you thought, feel free to comment here.

Remember that you can comment entirely anonymously, or if you prefer to contact me privately, send me an email to jonathanwest22@googlemail.com. Some parents have already contacted me privately. Naturally, I shall not be giving out names. If you wish to contact me in confidence, that confidence will be respected.

The Safeguarding meeting

I decided that I would write to the headteacher at St. Benedict's to ask if I could attend the meeting next week.

From: Jonathan West
Date: 8 September 2010 15:54
Subject: Safeguarding Meeting 14 September
To: Senior School Headmaster

Dear Headmaster

As I am sure you are aware, as the father of a former pupil of St. Benedict's School I have taken a close interest in safeguarding matters at the school since the conviction of Father David Pearce last year. I note from the August edition of your Headmaster's Newsletter that you will be holding a meeting with parents on this subject in the Cloister on 14th September.

Since safeguarding is a matter of general public interest (for instance to parents who may be considering sending their children to the school in the future),  I would like to attend the meeting, and be able to ask questions. Please advise whether you have any objection to my presence at the meeting.

Yours sincerely

Jonathan West

I have received the following reply from the headmaster.

From: Senior School Headmaster
Date: 10 September 2010 16:53
Subject: RE: Safeguarding Meeting 14 September
To: Jonathan West

Dear Mr West,

Re: Ealing Abbey

I have received your email of 8th September, and the meeting I have called on 14th September is restricted to current parents, and current staff.

As you know, Queen’s Counsel, Lord Carlile of Berriew, is undertaking a review of all child safeguarding matters, both historical and up-to-date. I know Lord Carlile will be contacting you to arrange a meeting to discuss the close interest that you have taken in safeguarding matters at the School.

I should be grateful if you would kindly acknowledge safe receipt of this communication.

Yours sincerely

Chris Cleugh
Headmaster

Notice the request for an acknowledgement that I have receiived his reply. He wants to be sure that he's within his rights to throw me out and charge me with trespass if I were to try and sneak in.

This is of a piece with my previous requests to meet the Abbot. The school can hardly claim to be interested in making all possible improvements to child protection if they persistently refuse to meet with those who have knowledge of the matter and concerns about the situation.

It appears that they will do anything rather permit themselves to be in a position where they have to answer difficult questions in front of witnesses. If they have nothing to hide, why avoid speaking to me?

I have a number of important questions which it would be good for parents to be able to ask. Although I can't be there, the questions can. If you are a parent of a pupil at the school would like to help ask the questions they ought to be answering, by all means get in touch. Email me at jonathanwest22@googlemail.com.

I acknowledged Chris Cleugh's email and asked him when the Terms of Reference for Lord Carlile's inquiry would be published. Until we see the terms of reference, we can't tell whether it will be another whitewash. I would be very happy to see the school make a real effort to put its house in order, and would unreservedly cheer and congratulate them if they do. But on present performance, we have to assume that the inquiry will be a whitewash unless and until we see evidence to the contrary.

The ISI Supplementary Report - 4

Now let's look at the Recommendations the ISI makes in its report:

Recommended action

In view of the previous incidents, it is recommended that an enhanced emphasis is placed on safeguarding and that the following precautionary action is taken where possible.

An "enhanced emphasis". Nice way of putting it. In other words, make some passing attempt at keeping the children safe from abusers.

1. Ensure that any staff or members of the religious community live away from the school, if they are subject to allegations of misconduct related to safeguarding or convicted of wrongdoing.

The ISI has had to tell the school to remove staff and monks suspected of abuse from the  premises! It is extraordinary that a school needs to be told this.

It will be interesting to find out whether this has been done with respect to Hobbs and Chillman.

2. Follow the advice given to render the safeguarding policy a model of excellence in its wording, implementation and review.

Unfortunately, as it stands this recommendation is totally useless, because we don't know what advice has been given! So parents will have no way of knowing whether or when this is done. If the school is serious about improving safeguarding, they should be prepared to publish the correspondence from the ISI which contains this advice.

3. Ensure that referrals are always made to the Independent Safeguarding Authority when appropriate. For historical cases, ensure that all relevant information is passed to the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

And this shows how weak-willed the ISI is. Rather than recommend that the school be prosecuted for breaking the law, it is just asking the school retrospectively to put its paperwork in order.

The ISI isn't saying how far back the school must go in respect of "historical cases". One year, two years, 30 years? We don't know. In the absence of a specific timescale, the school is almost certainly going to be very tempted to interpret this recommendation in the narrowest possible way. Remember, the school's failings in this respect (for instance in the case of Father David Pearce) have led directly to additional pupils of the school being abused. This is not a mere administrative matter of inadequate record-keeping. This has wrecked pupils' lives.

4. Give greater emphasis to safeguarding in the school personal, social, health and citizenship (PSHCE) programme and reflect this in the school improvement plan.

There is no evidence that this has yet been done, nor any indication as to how (or if) the ISI will enforce this.

As far as I’m aware, the School Improvement Plan is not published, so again parents cannot enforce this because they can't tell what the targets are and whether they are being met.

5. Emphasise awareness raising and training in safeguarding across the whole community of school, Abbey and parish, with formal contact between the child protection officers.

There is no evidence that this has yet been done, nor any indication as to how (or if) the ISI will enforce this. On the matter of Parish safeguarding, it appears that no lessons have been learned. The safeguarding page of the Ealing Abbey parish website has a statement on safeguarding which contains no procedures, it is merely a statement of good intentions. The page also contains a reference and link to the CSAS model procedures, but doesn't say that those procedures are actually being followed in the parish.

For the CSAS procedures to be followed effectively, far more is needed than a mere link to the CSAS website. Actual written procedures need to be developed that are specific to the abbey and the parish, and for them to be published and regularly reviewed. Names of individuals need to be given, with details of who is responsible for what.

This was touched on in the Diocesan review published earlier this year. Curiously, the Diocesan review addressed procedures in the Abbey (but not the school), and yet the sumary of the review is only available on the Information for Parents page of the school website! One does get the overwhelming feeling that the Abbot is looking to do as little as possible about all this and hope that all the bad publicity eventually blows over. He shows no sign of any interest in actually doing the right thing and getting child protection working properly.

Se let's summarize. The ISI is recommending a variety of measures which could make a real improvement in the quality of safeguarding. However, they have not stated how they propose to ensure that these measures are actually put into effect by the school, and they have not provided enough information about the recommendations to enable parents to check this for themselves.

The ISI Supplementary Report - 3

Let's look next at what the ISI says about the school's compliance with regulatory requirements, and what needs to be done about it.

Regulatory requirements

At the time of the inspection visit on 30 April 2010, the school’s safeguarding policy was found to cover most of the requirements which are the duties of governors of independent schools. However, the school’s written policy for dealing with allegations and suspicions of abuse was focused on investigation by the school rather than speedy referral to outside agencies. As a result, under Regulation 3.(2)(b) of the Independent School Standards Regulations, the school was required to word the policy so that it is clear that in the case of a disclosure or suspicion of abuse:

(i) the investigations are to be carried out by the local safeguarding children board or in case of doubt the advice of such an agency is to be sought;

(ii) the child’s interests are paramount;

(iii) referrals are made not only where a case is considered by the school to be serious and criminal;

(iv) no case of substance is investigated and dealt with under the school’s internal procedures.

The school was also advised to include in the policy more of the best practice guidance from Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education.

Let's be completely clear about what this says. The school is not supposed to investigate complaints of abuse. Any case of substance is automatically passed to the local safeguarding children board (part of Social Services) for them to investigate. As you can see from my previous articles analysing the school's Child protection policy, the school has been dedicated towards finding any possible excuse not to make such referrals.

Only in the new version of the policy issued today (4 months after the initial visit in April) is any attempt made to fulfil these requirements. The 24 May 2010 version of the policy, and before that the 1 September 2009 version had none of this.

It would appear that the school has been breaking primary legislation for many years, perhaps even decades, and not returning Notifications to the DfE or the ISA, and in all that time the ISI and its predecessors have never noticed. You can't expect the ISI to police the school - if they have let this past for so many years, one can't really expect them to keep a close eye on the school hereafter.

Safeguarding Children and Safer Recruitment in Education is 129 pages long. The report doesn't say what improvements should be made from from what sections of this document. So parents aren't in a position to know whether all the requested changes have been made.

The DfE has said that it is parents who are responsible for holding schools to account for child protection – clearly this is not understood by the ISI and so they determinedly do not inform parents of their expectations of the school – presumably because it would further damage the school’s reputation.

Soon after the inspection visits, the school had posted on its website a fully compliant version of its safeguarding policy, and it undertook that from September 2010 it would include examples of ways in which staff, volunteers and members of the religious community are guided to help avoid the possibility of allegations in the future.

The 24 May 2010 version of the policy most certainly did not comply with the requirements mentioned above in the report. The ISI appeared to be unaware of this when I contacted Durell Barnes on 4th August to ask him about it.

I was outraged when I saw this paragraph in the report, as I had received assurances from the DfE that they were aware of the 24 May version of the Child Protection Policy and did not regard it as the final compliant version. I phoned the DfE on 4th August demanding an explanation, following up with an email to describe my concerns. In reply, I received the following very cagey email from Georgina Carney of the DfE on 5 August.

Dear Mr West

Thank you for your email confirming the concerns we discussed.  The detail you have provided is helpful.

We have now obtained a copy of what the school considers to be the final version of its child protection document.  Officials are in the process of reviewing the document in detail and we will take advice from the relevant policy team. I confirm that any on-going concerns will be taken up with the school directly.

Georgina Carney
Independent Education and Boarding Schools Team
Department for Education

And yet the following appeared in an article in the Times the next day.

Anthony Nelson, solicitor for Ealing Abbey, said the Abbot was anxious to address the mistakes of the past and make sure they were never repeated.

“We held an urgent two-hour meeting with the ISI and the Department for Education last week to discuss the report and the school’s child protection policy is now completely compliant with their requirements,” said Mr Nelson.

Something similar appeared on the BBC website.

Chris Cleugh, St Benedict's current headmaster, says policy changes had been implemented since the visit.


"We have fully co-operated with the ISI while they did the inspection. Whenever they have made suggestions we have been very compliant.


"We would never do anything that would not ensure the safety of the children in this school."

But the fact is that at the time these statements were made, no significant changes had been made to the child protection policy. The ISI had made suggestions, and they simply hadn't been carried out.

On to the next paragraph of the ISI's statement on regulatory requirements:

Under Standard 4C of the Independent School Standards Regulations, the school was required to ensure that the dates of checks are included in the single central register of appointments. At the time of the second follow-up visit, this action had been taken.

What! The school didn't even maintain the statutory information properly in its central register of appointments? That is a scandal! Unfortunately, we don't know how much of a scandal, because the ISI hasn't been very specific in terms of what was missing. This is what Regulation 4C states.

4C.—(1) The proprietor shall keep a register which meets the following requirements.

(2) In relation to each member of staff appointed on or after 1st May 2007, the register shall show whether—

(a) his identity was checked;

(b) a check was made to establish whether he is subject to any direction made under section 142 of the Education Act 2002 or any disqualification, prohibition or restriction which takes effect as if contained in such a direction;

(c) checks were undertaken to ensure, where appropriate, that he had the relevant qualifications;

(d) an enhanced criminal record certificate was obtained in respect of him;

(e) checks were made pursuant to paragraph 4(2)(c);

(f) a check of his right to work in the United Kingdom was made; and

(g) checks were made pursuant to paragraph 4(2)(e),

and the register shall include the date on which each such check was completed or the certificate obtained.

That's a lot of different checks, and a lot of different dates to be entered. But we don't know which ones are missing, because the ISI doesn't say. And they didn't notice this in their November 2009 inspection.

As you can tell from the wording of Regulation 4C. correct maintenance of the register is crucial to safe recruitment practice, making sure that unqualified teachers are not appointed, and making sure that staff who have been found to be unsuitable to work with children are not appointed.

This is not limited to those who have actually been convicted of something. When a staff member is appointed, an enhanced disclosure CRB check is supposed to be conducted. This should reveal details of any Notifications reported by schools who had previously employed the person. A school really should not be recruiting a teacher who has been sacked by another school for inappropriate sexual conduct towards pupils, even if that conduct did not result in a criminal conviction. If there is any irregularity in the register of appointments, this is a the sort of thing that can happen.

This should have been noticed in the November 2009 inspection. Since the ISI didn’t notice that the school hadn’t published a compliant child protection policy, why should we believe them when they say that the school now has a compliant register of appointments?

Let us summarise the situation the ISI has found. At the time of their visit, the school had a Child Protection Policy that failed to fulfil the school's statutory obligations, and the school was not maintaining its central register of appointments according to statutory requirements. So it was practicing unsafe recruitment and inadequate child protection. And breaking the law in the process.

Safeguarding Meeting at St. Benedict's

Well well well!

The August edition of the Headmaster's newsletter includes the following fascinating article.

Inspections
Following the full Inspection in November 2009 ISI conducted a followup unannounced inspection in April. This was to look specifically at the safeguarding procedures here. We were advised by the Reporting Inspector not to inform parents until the report was complete. This report, commissioned by the DFE, was published in August. A copy of this report (selected parts of which have featured recently in both local and national press) will be sent to you by the end of the summer holiday with a covering letter. This will include an invitation to a meeting on Tuesday 14th September at 7.30pm in The Cloisters at which Fr Abbot, Mr Simmons and I will answer any questions you may have. Although the report does include recommendations which will be fully implemented, it most importantly affirms that your children are safe, happy and thriving here!

At the same time you will be sent a copy of the Diocesan Report following their Inspection in July. This is hugely affirming of the Catholic Benedictine life of the School.

Just in case you are a parent and haven't yet received a copy of the ISI report, then unfortunately you cannot download it from the school website. As far as I can tell they haven't yet put a copy up there. When you read it you may understand why they aren't very keen to publicise it. However a copy is available at the ISI website, and you can download it from there and read it. If you are a parent of a pupil at the school, I strongly recommend that you do so.

The ISI report is rather coy in some of the language it uses. This is not surprising given the shambolic incompetence in the ISI that the report reveals, quite apart from the failings of the school itself. The report highlights numerous shortcomings in child protection which have existed at the school for years, which were completely missed in the ISI's last two routine inspections in 2003/4 and 2009.

I have described the first two pages of the ISI supplementary report here and here. Keep checking in here, I shall in the next day or two be describing the "regulatory requirements" and "recommended actions" sections of the report, and what the words mean in plain language.

Also, it turns out that, entirely unheralded, an update the the school's Child Protection Policy has today been published on the school website. I haven't had a chance to look at it in detail yet, but I do notice that some changes have been made in areas I have been criticising. The definition of Sexual Abuse is much improved for instance, and some of the wording to do with internal investigations has been changed to say that matters of substance will be referred to Social Services. But I can see that many paragraphs remain largely unchanged, and there are still far too many weasel words in the document.

If you are a parent of a pupil at the school, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you should attend this meeting. It concerns the safety of your children. It is important that some serious questions are asked at the meeting. if you would like some help working out what are the necessary questions, feel free to contact me by email at jonathanwest22@googlemail.com, and I can help with this.