A Cheating Conclusion: The Williamson Report

In the dim and distant past, when I was at school, we used to have mathematics problems to work on. Unlike some schools, our head of mathematics, Charles Green, had a marvelous policy for teaching mathematics.

The mathematics text books had answers at the back! That may seem strange, but the point of this policy was to get pupils to concentrate on the important part of mathematics - working things out. It was the workings that were important, and how they led to the conclusion step by step. More points were awarded for correct working than for getting the "right answer". Indeed, it was easy for a teacher to spot people who didn't understand the mathematics, because the workings would not be there, or be incomplete, and the answer would spring out of thin air.

I was reminded of that when I read the Williamson report, and came to the recommendations, and found among them:

Develop whistleblowing policy for all staff.

This seems to arrive, unannounced, with no supporting argument, no evidence, out of the blue.

It is, par excellence, an answer with no "working things out".

But when we look at the recommendations of a very similar (but much more detailed) report - The Waterhouse Report - into the wide scale abuse that took place in residential homes in Wales (released in February 2000), we find a large of argument relating to the authorities constructing a "wall of disbelief" at the outset, and pressure from management down the line to conceal shortcomings and failures of the system (sound familiar?). As a result of those systematic failures, the report came out strongly in its recommendations that there be:

Whistleblowing procedures
(8) Every local authority should establish and implement conscientiously clear whistleblowing procedures enabling members of staff to make complaints and raise matters of concern affecting the treatment or welfare of looked after children without threats or fear of reprisals in any form. Such procedures should embody the principles indicated in recommendation (7) and the action to be taken should follow, as far as may be appropriate, that set out in recommendation (4).20, 58(iii),62(v)

Duty to report abuse
(9) Consideration should be given to requiring failure by a member of staff to report actual or suspected physical or sexual abuse of a child by another member of staff or other person having contact with the child to be made an explicit disciplinary offence.


Indeed, it goes further it detailing Whistleblowing, by noting that "an independent Children's Commissioner for Wales should be appointed" and "the duties of the Commissioner should include"

ensuring that children's rights are respected through the monitoring and oversight of the operation of complaints and whistleblowing procedures and the arrangements for children's advocacy;

This makes sense, because we can see how the existing system had previously failed children, and the weaknesses that were present which required all such recommendations. But the Williamson report has this recommendation, but no arguments in the report as to why it is necessary, and indeed it is very thin on the ground (unlike Waterhouse) on how that should work - look at "duty to report abuse", not just availability of whistleblowing service - but duty.

And finally...

Williamson did make unannounced visits (which was good) and speak to young people away from staff. But in a small island like Jersey, how anonymous were those interviews likely to be, and how much would people in that situation feel unafraid to speak out. (It is notable that the critics were all young people no longer in the system.) That might mean that all is well, but it might mean that they suppress what they would like to say because at the end of the day, they have to live within the system.

I cannot help thinking of what Darwin noted about slavery:

I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have generally visited at the houses of the upper classes, where the domestic slaves are usually well treated; and they have not, like myself, lived amongst the lower classes. Such inquirers will ask slaves about their condition; they forget that the slave must indeed be dull, who does not calculate on the chance of his answer reaching his master's ears.







http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4003097