New children's services chief points finger at Government officials

Jonathan Reed Political Editor

GOVERNMENT officials have been accused of failing to get to grips with the problems at Doncaster’s children’s services for years despite a “significant amount of evidence” showing there was grave trouble.

Children were put at risk because the authority had been “in crisis” for many years without intervention, the council’s new director of children’s services, Nick Jarman, told MPs yesterday.

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Tory leader David Cameron also questioned why the Government took so long to intervene as he demanded Ministers published the full review into the shocking attacks on two boys in Edlington.

Mr Cameron condemned a “catalogue of errors” in children’s services over several years at Doncaster and asked “why so much went wrong for so long before we intervened”.

Earlier Mr Jarman told a committee of MPs staff were in “meltdown” in April when he arrived at the authority after Children’s Secretary Ed Balls ordered an overhaul of the department while reviews were ordered into the deaths of seven children.

Inspection regimes had failed to detect the “extent of distress” at the authority which had “probably been going on for over a decade”, he said.

A spokesman for Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber said: “Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber have been working closely on this matter and will continue to do so.”