Leadership failure
In his recent letter, Ged Taylor accused local Conservative Leader, Antony Mullen, of saying that the recent Together for Children Ofsted report outcome was down to government not the local Labour council.
Ged is so quick to try and attack the Conservatives that he overlooked the fact that this was said by Labour’s Cllr Linda Williams, who used to be the Deputy Cabinet Member for Children’s Services.
At November 2019’s Council meeting, Cllr Williams said that the council had no role in Together for Children other than to pay the bills.
She added that it was the Conservative Children’s Minister who was in charge and that he had more say than her.
Ged might want to watch the recording of the meeting, which is still online, and see these words flow from the horse’s mouth.
Ged Taylor then went on to say Cllr Mullen gave "faint praise” to Jill Colbert, the Together for Children boss.
Cllr Mullen said Together for Children had saved lives: this is hardly faint praise.
But let’s remember why it was such an achievement in the first place.
Ofsted said children were not properly safeguarded, and in one report they said that children in Sunderland were at risk of radicalisation.
Problems were identified in the 1990s and continued until the service run by the council collapsed and was put into special measures in 2016.
The service was then rescued by the Conservative Government.
Former labour MP, Hilton Dawson, pointed out that in 2015 Ofsted stated there was in Sunderland “widespread and serious failures that leave children unsafe”.
He went on to say Sunderland's Labour council had responsibility for “corporate parenting”.
When Conservative councillors raised concerns in council they were accused of making political gain out of vulnerable children.
All this on Labour’s watch.
If they want to take the credit when things go well, they should not be shy to take responsibility when things go wrong: that’s leadership - and Labour has failed to show it.
“Don’t be shy to take responsibility when things go
wrong.”