It has been over 10 years since the publication of the Independent Inquiry into organised Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), also known as the Jay Report, carried out by gangs of mainly Pakistani heritage men in the borough of Rotherham. The Jay report estimated that over 1,400 children and young people, predominantly female and white British, were victims of the gangs and failed by a range of public services including the police, social workers and local councils. This scandal shares similar features to other public sector failures but also has its own unique factors which are worthy of further analysis.
Concurrent themes were found in the Jay Report and the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust investigations of 2010 and 2013 into excess mortality rates at the hospital. Crucial to understanding both is the role that new managerialism played especially in relation to performance management targets. Essentially, frontline services were redirected to meet these targets and frontline staff faced resource cuts and managerial pressure to prioritise organisational goals rather than serve their client group. Police officers were directed to solve car crime and burglary, which counted towards targets, instead of CSE which did not. Meanwhile, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) declined to take forward prosecutions of CSE because in an adversarial court system, victims that have been repeatedly drugged, traumatised and intimidated did not make effective prosecutorial witnesses.
Similarly, at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust where hundreds of patients suffered poor care and neglect, frontline staff particularly in the Emergency Department (ED) were bullied and coerced into prioritising the four-hour admission or discharge target rather than deliver effective care. The NHS trust board, which did not include a single registered health professional, cut frontline resources including nursing staff and the vital equipment they relied upon to dangerous levels and tasked non-clinical receptionists to carry out triage of patients – a role that should be conducted by experienced nurses with additional training.
New managerialism also fostered bullying cultures and saw whistleblowers intimidated as the status of bureaucrats and non-professional managers was elevated because of their role in the production and curation of quantitative evidence. This led to the ‘McDonaldisation’ of policing, nursing and social work and saw professionals’ role become ever more fragmented and task focused, eroding their professional autonomy, creativity, discretion and compassion. In the clutches of bureaucratised public services, those in need of care were put at greater risk of dehumanisation. The traumatised victim of CSE who required holistic care and support, as well as protection from further intimidation and abuse, is blamed by police officers and social workers for ‘putting themselves at risk’ or ‘consenting to their own abuse’. The patient suffering from dementia lying in an unchanged bed becomes further dehumanised through the failure to deliver the fundamentals of care by exhausted and demoralised nurses.
However, unique to the scandal of CSE is the attempts to silence witnesses, whistleblowers, journalists and politicians to hide away the failures of multiculturalism and protect political power bases. At Rotherham efforts were made, and were largely successful, in undermining Risky Business, an independent organisation which advocated on behalf of and supported victims but was later brought under local authority control.
What perhaps has received little attention is the vulnerability of white British families in a modern high trust society, according to Giddens’s sociologically inspired definition of trust. The Pakistani heritage community has more in common with pre-modern societies based on kinship relations, local community ties, religious faith and tradition compared to white British society based on personal relationships, abstract systems and a future-oriented perspective. This enabled abusers to use their family networks, including children enrolled in local schools and older men working in taxi services, restaurants and public services, to identify, target and abuse their victims. Meanwhile, white British families placed their trust in public servants such as police officers and social workers for protection but when these failed, they were left uniquely vulnerable. Bauman explained how modern citizens, who had given up the right to use violence in their course of their daily affairs, were uniquely vulnerable when the state turned its violence against them. The Jay Report detailed how one family left the U.K. because they had no confidence that the local authorities would protect their child who was being repeatedly targeted by gangs.
A discussion needs to be had about the continued atomisation of white British society and the destruction of the family, including marriage and communities, which has such profound implications for the well-being of children and resilience to external threats. Social workers used the wrong model of child protection at Rotherham, based on familiar patterns of abuse, and removed children from the protective environment of the family and placed them in residential accommodation. This accommodation had been infiltrated already by perpetrators and consequently estrangement from family became a feature of this grooming strategy, along with intoxication through drugs, violent threats and intimidation and trafficking.
Since these scandals came to public attention, little has been done to prevent further harm to the public because there has been no accountability for failings that implicated all the regulatory bodies involved with the protection of the public as well as political leaders. Consequently, highly ranking professionals, senior leaders and politicians continue to oversee further public scandals such as the Post Office miscarriage of justice and the COVID-19 pandemic response. There is now a profound disconnect between democratically-elected politicians, who continue to fail upwards, and the public, leading to the destruction of a previously high trust society. Moreover, until the problem of ‘immoral authority’ is addressed, further scandals associated with multiculturalism, new managerialism and pharmaceutical egress will emerge, and the continued atomisation of our society will leave us and our children more vulnerable to abuse of all kinds.
Dr. Rowena Slope is a Senior Lecturer in Adult Nursing at Bournemouth University and author of Corporate Totalitarianism: Freedom, Power and Technology in the Modern Era and Care in the Iron Cage: A Weberian Analysis of Failings in Care. Subscribe to her Substack.
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BBC Middle East history – Jeremy Bowen.
” It is not clear yet whether Syria is destined for a democratic future or will fall prey to jihadists previously affiliated with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda.”
Eh? A blind man on a galloping horse can see where Syria is heading and it’s not a “democratic” (if that has any meaning anymore) future.
Correct. And it is a foregone conclusion that Syria’s military capability will be commandeered by the insane jihadists and turned to their malicious intentions toward Israel.. you can write it down! Much the same as Hamas would continue on its mission to obliterate Israel from the other direction if no direct action was taken.
Which is why the IDF have destroyed the Syrian Airforce on the ground, and its navy in port.
“And it is a foregone conclusion that Syria’s military capability will be commandeered by the insane jihadists”
Nope. Israel got their first…
Between democracy (won’t happen if only because Muslims are told it is wrong) and a jiihadi state there is a wide range of possibilities. I suspect it will be jihadi.
Is that “democratic” in our British understanding of democratic?
Oh, just what any country would need. I wonder if Kneel can cobble together a working party to go to Syria and show them how it’s done?
We watch the parade of BBC middle-east experts on the 10pm news. But, don’t worry, we don’t believe anything they say.
Wise.
“This is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East with multiple Christian and Muslim sects. And you can see it here in the Old City, all the different Quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian. They’re all here.”
Yes… and have they have been fighting each other for about 1500 years – the joys and wonders of multi-culturalism.
Until the mass invasion by the Zs into the Levant I doubt if the people of the Levant have warred with each other any more than the European people have with each other.
Islamic countries, as far as I can see, are certainly vibrant but not very multicultural.
No serious reporting or journalism on geopolitical affairs should take place without a deep understanding of the historical context of the region in question, otherwise bias inevitably results.
Only 3 Jews left in Syria? The Syrians should be so lucky!
Israel was quick to occupy the Golan Heights. Since Assad’s fall, Israel has been bombing the daylights out of every military installation in the country, completely destroying Syria’s navy:
The Israeli military on Tuesday said it had carried out about 480 strikes across the country over the past two days, hitting most of Syria’s strategic weapon stockpiles, while Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli navy had destroyed the Syrian fleet overnight, hailing the operation as “a great success.” (https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/10/middleeast/israel-syria-assad-strikes-intl/index.html)
There is a video showing Israeli Merkava Mark 4 tanks in the city of Umm Batna in the rural area of Quneitra in southern Syria.
These actions are, of course, in parallel to the continued starvation and murder of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as the continued bombing of Lebanon.
As far as media reports go, I love the comparison made by Simplicius comparing last week’s Washington Post headline “Israeli troops move swiftly into Syrian territory” to the 2022 PBS headline “Russia invades Ukraine on multiple fronts in brutal act of war”.
Exactly what right does Israel have to invade a sovereign foreign country and completely destroy that country’s military, especially when the country is already down on its knees? The answer is, of course, ’Self-defence’, as though Israel was not primarily responsible for the country’s downfall in the first place.
Until you started writing about alleged wring by Israel in Gaza I thought you were complementing Israel on taking pre-emptive action to protect themselves and others from jihadists getting control of Russian munitions and chamical weapons.
Once Greater Israel is achieved then there will be peace. From the Sinai to the Euphrates Israel will rule. So suck it up Jew haters.
How could anyone possibly hate Jews? Such caring, peace loving people. So in addition to Lebanon and Syria, Israel now only has to take on Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, you are saying? All in self-defence, of course. I am sure that will all happen very peacefully.
Sadly the Zionist lovers on here are too dim to realise this.
All hail Greater Israel.
They will be the death of us all.
Fingers crossed
B-b-but..the evil Jews control the world, because George Soros!😲🙄😁
I do not think they are aware of their ignorance. If university educated, which they will be, they will have been taught presentism and by left wing teachers who have hated Israel for decades.
Ah, what is it about the BBC reporters?
That smooth, knowledgeable, reassuringly professional, confident, slightly condescending and patronizing voice, that fake objectivity…
That aura of “listen, kids, let me tell you how things are”…
All of them are like that. Jeremy Bowen, Fergus Walsh, Fiona Bruce…
The thing is – it’s actually really convincing. I have to admit that. They are good at it. Their entire biased, agenda-based reporting is done really well, apart from the fact that it presents an extremely distorted view of the world. Unless you check the “facts”, you are duped. Like convincing conmen who swindle old ladies out of their savings, they are really good at it.
I have been looking at number of photos/videos of prisoners just liberated from their cells after months/years captivity, solitary confinement, beatings, etc.
Observation: beards and hair neatly trimmed, appear well-fed, clothes in decent condition.
Anyone else noticed this incongruity with months/years of privation and brutal treatment?
The BBC is funded by the UK public, but seeks to please the public of Middle Eastern countries, other than Israel. They make no secret of this.
Bowen hates Israel.
My friends, who run Camera-uk.org, have demonstrated that literally every day for the last 10 years (that I’ve been reading their analysis) the BBC has promoted mis-truths about Israel.
I’ve been following this for over 25 years. It is endemic.
Arabs occupy vast regions of land, including many well beyond their historic homeland.
I do find it amazing how widespread Arab culture is in so many countries without even a whiff of imperialism.
What a difference a day makes. Christmas cancelled in Syria