Case of young Leeds girl sexually abused by convicted paedophile she was placed with shows why city needs more social workers

The case of ‘Ruby’ (not her real name), who was abused over a period of several years by her legal guardian, was recently highlighted in a safeguarding review.

The authorities granted the convicted sex offender custody of Ruby, despite knowing of his criminal past.

Despite the review exposing multiple failings, the Leeds Safeguarding Partnership – which comprises the city council, police and the NHS – have refused to publicly answer questions around their handling of the case.

The Partnership initally decided the case had not met a ‘serious harm’ threshold that requires a referral to a national safeguarding panel, but then did so at a later date.

Senior council sources have indicated they believe it’s in the interests of the victim not to discuss Ruby’s case any further.

But Opposition Conservative councillor Ryan Stephenson claimed the sickening offences against Ruby highlighted why more social workers were needed, amid a nationwide shortage, at a meeting of all city councillors on Wednesday.

The case was briefly mentioned as the Conservative group called on the council’s Labour administration to offer free childcare to staff in the children’s service department.

Labour, however, attacked the Tory government for cuts to social care funding, which it says has decimated care for the most vulnerable in the city.

The council’s executive member for children’s social care, Councillor Fiona Venner, also pointed to Ofsted rating Leeds’ children’s services outstanding, twice in a row.

But Councillor Stephenson said: “If you talk to social workers they’ll tell you there is a crisis in recruitment and retention that means the cases that exist fall on fewer and fewer people.

“While Councillor Venner talks about Leeds being outstanding, she shows no humility in talking about the failures of this council – like a recent case of child sexual exploitation, where Councillor Venner refused to say that all cases of child sexual exploitation are serious harm and should be referred nationally.

“That’s why we need to expand the social care workforce.

“If you talk to social workers and their union representatives, they will say they’ve asked this administration to look at things like free childcare to attract workers.”

The comments came against the backdrop of the council’s annual budget-setting meeting, where local authority spending and council tax rates are set for the next 12 months.

The administration also came under attack from the Tories for repeatedly overspending on children’s social care since Labour took control of Leeds in 2010.

But Councillor Venner had earlier claimed the Conservative government had invested just 10 per cent of the money deemed to be necessary to protect vulnerable children across the UK.

She also said Leeds was the only city of comparable size to retain an ‘outstanding’ grade from Ofsted.

She said: “It is with this record that we can confidently say that national funding of children’s social care falls abysmally short of what’s needed.

“That is why every council in the country has overspent on children’s services.

“How dare opoosition councillors suggests it’s fault of our officers for not trying hard enough to balance the books?”

Child safeguarding procedures are expected to be discussed by councillors in detail at a cross-party scrutiny meeting next month.