Southport Conservatives left exposed over 'hypocritical' Children's Services attacks

Local Conservatives have been accused of putting 'political games" before the welfare of Sefton's children after a series of attacks following a recent critical Ofsted report.

Southport's Conservative MP Damien Moore and Sefton Conservative Leader Cllr Mike Prendergast have called for heads to roll following the report on the council's children's services but critics claim their efforts show they are more interested in trying to claim a political scalp than in actually seeing the problems addressed properly.

Their calling for the resignation of the Cabinet Member currently tackling the issues highlighted in the report has been labelled a 'huge blunder' by Norwood Councillor Greg Myers, who explained:

"Ofsted has highlighted serious failings in Sefton's children's service over a number of years, there's no getting away from that and the council has rightly accepted responsibility for those failings and is currently going through a root and branch restructuring of those services." 

"The old single portfolio of Children's Services was acknowledged as too vast and unwieldy and split into two positions, one specifically for education and the other specifically focussing on children's social care."  

"The new Cabinet Member for Children's Social Care, my ward colleague Cllr Mhairi Doyle, has apologised for the situation and unreservedly accepted the criticism of the previous failings. Since she has come in last year there have also been significant strides forward." 

"Elements of children's social care that were scattered across other portfolios have been brought together under her responsibility to ensure a more coherent approach. Social workers and colleagues in children's education have been brought together in Magdalene House to ensure better communication and clarity of purpose." 

"Funding has been significantly increased and the debilitating shortfall in social workers is being addressed. A new Director of Children's Services has also been brought in who has a proven track record of success in turning failing local authority children's departments into outstanding ones. That is absolutely the target for Sefton." 

"A whole raft of other changes have also been put into place and the results of all this are already being praised by various local parents, foster carers and social workers alike."

"Of course, much still needs to be done and the challenge is sizeable, it will take time. Sadly some opposition figures seem to fail to understand that."

"Even worse, despite some privately acknowledging the huge amount of work that Cllr Doyle is undertaking and the moves forward - publicly, we have a lot of politics being played. Which, given the fact we are talking about improving matters for the children of Sefton, is pretty unsightly."            

"Especially when we have the likes of Mr Moore calling for Cllr Doyle's resignation and Cllr Prendergast saying she should consider her position. It's a huge blunder and it would be a backwards step if they got their way."

"It's frankly astonishing that they want to get rid of a Cabinet member who is turning things around and is completely committed to making a real difference, simply because they are so desperate to claim a scalp in their ongoing campaign against Sefton Council." 

"For me, if Damien Moore was really that bothered about Sefton's children he wouldn't have voted against providing extra meals to support the most deprived of them." 

"Since becoming MP he's refused to help local children avoid going without meals not once but on two separate occasions, the last time during the pandemic. His voting against 80% furlough wasn't exactly looking out for Sefton families and their children either." 

"Latest figures show that over the last seven years, during which Mr Moore has been MP for most of it, education funding in Southport has also dropped remarkably under the Conservatives. I've not seen him calling for heads to roll there." 

"Equally, Cllr Prendergast would not have refused to sit on the Sefton Corporate Parenting Board which is the body that oversees and scrutinises the welfare of Sefton's current 626 children in care and also recent care leavers."

"The invitation to do so was extended to him twice before last week's full council meeting. The second time he didn't even bother responding but his first refusal revealed how little knowledge of this area he really has."

 "Indeed, he actually seemed to think it was a new board. In fact, it has sat every six weeks since 2009. To be fair, the source of his ignorance might be that the Conservatives have failed to attend it since 2017."

"Those facts tell me all I need to know about their level of concern, their hypocritical behaviour and their political games - which are actually only a detrimental distraction to the ultimate goal of making children's social care in Sefton an Ofsted-rated outstanding service." 

"Every Sefton councillor is a Corporate Parent and the scrutiny process is non-party political and involves councillors from across the political spectrum. As such, on that level, we all have to accept some responsibility for what has happened and look to work constructively to improve matters." 

 "Of course, Mr Moore's interventions as MP are typically unconstructive but it's frankly brass-necked of Cllr Prendergast to have refused to be on the Corporate Parenting Board and shirked his responsibilities while asking Cllr Doyle to consider her position - especially when it's crystal clear which one is actually working hard to tackle the problems and which one is obviously not."   

Photo Caption - Norwood Cllrs Greg Myers and Mhairi Doyle..