THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) is not planning to discipline any senior managers on foot of a damning report into foster care services, which left significant numbers of children in unsafe care placements.
In response to queries about whether any senior staff would face censure yesterday, the HSE said its focus was not “apportioning blame” but learning from weaknesses identified in its child protection services.
However, Minister for Children Barry Andrews said yesterday there should be consequences for anyone who failed to deliver a professional standard of services in the provision of foster care.
As happened with the Catholic Church, he said he expected there would be consequences for those presiding over a failing service.
The reports into foster care services by the Health Information Quality Authority (Hiqa) laid much of the blame for the failure at the hands of senior management.
Hiqa’s report in relation to foster care services in Dublin northwest highlighted “a lack of recognition at senior management level that the childcare regulations exist to safeguard and protect vulnerable children”.
It added: “The findings in these areas showed an unsafe approach to protecting and safeguarding children.”
The report said many of these failings had been made aware to senior management as long ago as 2004, yet little appeared to have been done to address them.
“The fact that these shortcomings have been known for a number of years, and were still present in 2009 and 2010, outline serious deficiencies in the effectiveness of the accountability, governance and management of these services, and the lack of emphasis on a child-centred culture at all levels of the HSE, but more significantly at management level.”
While there was criticism for management, inspectors paid tribute to the evidence of good practice where children had been assigned a social worker.
In a statement yesterday, the HSE said resource levels were a “key factor” in having the capacity to provide a quality foster care service, and the Government’s decision to allocate 200 new posts was a welcome development.
The HSE said that where there were sufficient social workers within a good governance structure there was the potential to “radically improve the service over time”.
The statement said: “The focus now is not about apportioning blame, but to learn from this process and to identify where weaknesses in the process and systems exist, identify the lessons to be learnt, and, consequently, allow services to put in place actions in order to address any shortfalls identified.”
Despite assertions that progress is being made, the Irish Association of Social Workers said it was concerned that vulnerable children continued to be placed in the care of people who have not been fully assessed.
It said this reflected the lack of priority given by the HSE to fully resource social work services so that social workers could undertake comprehensive and timely assessments of children or foster parents.
