So... it appears that Southampton City Council has just apologised for 'failings' in children's services’. 1/ https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18662130.southampton-city-council-apologises-failings-childrens-services/

I have some things to say about this. This was the council that @Andy_Bilson's research showed adopted the highest proportion of 0-5 year olds in the country 2/

It was also the LA which was shown by the Court of Appeal to have applied for a child to be placed for adoption on "the slimmest of evidence". They were successful. It was only the mother's courageous battle to overturn that placement order that meant her child is with her now.

The fight cost her circa £60K of money she and family had to liquidate all assets and savings to find. The council fought against me, @Melanie_Newman and @Sanchia7 from being able to report the Crt of Appeal ruling together with the fact the child returned to her mother 4/

Together with @Sanchia7 I successfully appealed the unlawful reporting restriction order made by the senior family judge working in that area which would have prevented us from reporting those facts and therefore the narrative of this awful, traumatic story 5/

But then... this council's - as it now turns out, failing children's services - spent god knows how many tens of thousands on a QC to fight @Melanie_Newman's subsequent application to have sight of the papers in that child's case 6/

..together with @MyCafcass choosing to argue that it went against the child's privacy to show - not even report at that stage - a single, responsible journalist the evidence for how such a shocking mess was created that could have wrenched a child from her mother, forever. 7/

Two fully contested days in court I sat through, watching this LA argue against transparency, and scrutiny, and now... now we find out through internal whistleblowers that the service is failing children badly, and the director of children's services has been sacked 8/

And it is supposed to be the *journalists* we are all so worried about, putting children at risk of harm. It beggars belief that public money continues to be spent like water to prevent scrutiny, when their own social workers - their OWN social workers - were so concerned 9/

...that they had to whistleblow to trigger an investigation that has seen the Director of CS leave (in June, I note, in the middle of a pandemic, when god knows vulnerable children needed strong leadership) amidst severe criticisms. 10/

Right, so, rather than tolerate the blame that journalists encounter for trying to do their jobs to investigate the state when the state fails children, perhaps it might be better for Parliament to repeal S12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 bloody well pronto 11/

...so that we don't have to fight tooth and nail against a culture in the family justice system that sees scrutiny as the enemy, rather than the poor systems and practice within some LA children's services that fail hundreds if not thousands of children 12/

Here are some of the failings picked out by an independent inspector of Southampton children's services which has led to the Director's abrupt dismissal: 13/

A culture of fear in the department. Significant numbers of unallocated cases, including of some of the most vulnerable children. That is very serious. A chaotic working environment. Managers who did not follow the council's own policies.

That was tweet 14.

Apparently there is to be a council meeting on 27 August about the report. The live stream will be interesting viewing, I imagine.

Belatedly I have just had the thought to FOI how much Southampton spent on legal fees to fight against scrutiny of the application @Melanie_Newman made for sight of the evidence submitted to have that child adopted.

Given that my FOI showed it cost just over £6k for Haringey to fight to redact its name from a Hayden judgment (two short hearings, one extra advice and skeleton from a 2nd barrister) I will be interested to know cost of QC for I think 3days of hearings.

Mind you given they got the cover up result they wanted they probably regard it as money well spent.