Parents Against Injustice
Parents Against Injustice
Doncaster Council loses right to care for children in wake of foster torture scandal
- Michael Gove orders authority to outsource children's services
- Council hit headlines when two boys in its care tortured two small children
- It is only the second time the power has been used
By Sam Webb
Education Secretary Michael Gove has stripped Doncaster Council of its powers to run chilldren's services
A council that is under scrutiny after two small boys endured a torture ordeal by two brothers in its foster care system will lose the power to run children's services.
Doncaster Council will have to outsource all its child social services on the orders of Education Secretary Michael Gove, pending a final decision on the authority at the end of May, reports The Times.
In 2009 two small children were were strangled, hit with bricks, made to eat nettles, stripped and forced to sexually abuse each other in a 90-minute attack by two brothers aged 11 and 12 in the authority's care.
The older boy was seriously injured when a piece of ceramic sink was dropped on his head.
Sentencing them in 2010, Mr Justice Keith described the crimes as 'truly exceptional'.
They were carried out 'for no reason other than that you got a real kick out of hurting and humiliating them', he said.
The brothers, who have not been named, were handed indefinite terms with a minimum tariff of five years over the 'appalling' attack in Edlington, near Doncaster.
A full report, which was leaked to the BBC, revealed how over 14 years nine agencies were involved with the family of the brothers and between them they missed 31 chances to intervene.
Ministers appointed a team to turn around Doncaster Council's poor record - it was judged inadequate by Ofsted in 2008 - and it appointed a new director from another council, but after a small improvement standards once again fell.
Experts including Alan Wood, director of children's services in Hackney, and Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics, are in charge of drawing up plans to improve the situation.
Town Mayor Peter Davies said: 'There have been significant improvements in our services but I have always made it clear that we still have a long way to go and need to accelerate the pace of change.'
Gove's decision to force the council to bring in an outside agency is only the second time powers allowing a council to have key responsibilities taken away have been used.
Hackney has only just had schools returned to its control after it was stripped of the responsibility in 2002 after a series of poor inspections.
Doncaster Council's HQ. The authority has been ordered to hand over children's services to an outside agency
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