Dear Mr Greenhead

I have only recently come into possession of two differing copies of a letter that is purported to have been sent to me from you dated 4 October 2011.  Given that both copies come from supposedly respectable sources and that the Director of Children's Services (Ronald Taylor) assures Simon Marcombe MP that the letter was sent to me I will address it as if it was.  However I certainly did not receive a copy of either of the two versions in the post so it is theoretically possible the postal service has let us down.

I will address each of your itemised responses:

1.  Thank you very much for the sincere apologies for the outlandish delays.  I am pleased that you feel confident that you can ensure your team will comply with statutory obligations in future.

2.  With respect, you are clearly not being thorough or responsible.  First of all it is not an "approved" date that is evidence of the reports' timely completion.  If you were to look for an 'authorisation' date you would find it absent on the Core Report.  Then there is the fact that, according to the statutory (legal) guidelines, the Initial Assessment should be completed "within a maximum of 7 working days" and it was evidently completed outside of that time limit by 4 days.  In addition Obelix Mahjong apologised for this error and it remains an error.  A Core Report is required by law to be completed within a "maximum of 35 working days" and this one was amazingly about 85 working days late!  There was no 'authorisation' and it was locked by the ICS on 14 March 2011.

3.  If your comment here is to be taken seriously then I am afraid you are probably suffering from institutionalised prejudice.  Could you, for example, explain exactly what "context" makes prejudicial, manipulative and insidious remarks "appropriate"?  (That is quite aside from the false information and evident lies.)

4.  I am satisfied that you have understood the lack of parental input in the report and will endeavour to ensure due regard is given to parental involvement in future.  Thank you for your apology and your reassuring comments.

5.  Thank you for recognising our distress.  It is, as you might imagine, very worrying that you say "our actions have been in line with normal operational practice".  This is actually a major concern of mine.  I worry that, precisely, the Children Services regard their behaviour as somehow "normal" as if acceptable.  And Sumshire County Council specifically can and will take responsibility for the distress, detrimental consequences, expense and damage caused as a direct result of their actions which you suggest are "normal" practice.

You then say that you cannot support the request for "the removal of reports from the ICS System".  I do understand the difficulty of your position.  You refer to your legal obligation to retain records and, of course, I completely understand and agree with that.  However, you also have a legal responsibility to ensure that those records are legitimate.  The two reports in question are clearly illegitimate on numerous accounts and therefore should not, by the same token, be on the ICS.

I am very sorry to say that I find your apparently sympathetic and kind remark "We are of course pleased that our Core Assessment activity found no further cause for concern because as I relayed when we met, the best place for children is with their families." extremely frightening.  It rather evidences the mindset of the Children Services.  There has never been any suggestion of stealing children but it is clearly in the back of your mind.  I was (mistakenly I now understand) under the impression that the Children Services were tasked to 'help' my daughter if she was in need.

Overall I am pleased to get this response from you (much as it has a dubious history) and, although I do not accept most of your findings, I thank you for taking the time and effort to investigate and respond.

Given the delay in my receipt of your letter the Stage 2 Investigation is now underway.

Yours sincerely

Dave Hook
B.A. M.Sc. MBCS CITP