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Home secretary to face MPs over future of child sexual abuse inquiry

By Alan Travis
Guardian
September 6, 2016

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/sep/06/amber-rudd-home-secretary-face-mps-future-child-sexual-abuse-inquiry

Amber Rudd (above) appointed Alexis Jay as chair of the inquiry immediately after Lowell Goddard resigned.
Photo by Gareth Fuller

Lowell Goddard.
Photo by Ben Pruchnie

Alexis Jay.
Photo by Martin Hunter

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, is to be questioned about the future of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse after the outgoing chair said its scale and aspirations were impossible to manage in its current form.

Dame Lowell Goddard sent a 10-page critique of the setup of the inquiry to the home affairs select committee, calling for a complete review and remodelling to focus it “more towards current events and thus focusing major attention on the present and future protection of children”.

However, Goddard has declined a request to appear before the committee on Wednesday to discuss her resignation. The New Zealand judge told the MPs she was unavailable, leaving Rudd to answer their questions.

Goddard resigned from the child sexual abuse inquiry on 4 August. Rudd promptly replaced her with Prof Alexis Jay, a distinguished social worker and inquiry member. The home secretary wrote to the committee saying that she could not delay the appointment because it was essential to maintain the confidence of the alleged victims and survivors of abuse.

Goddard said in her memo published on Tuesday that the overall size and complexity of the inquiry’s terms of reference – which stretch back more than 60 years and span institutions including the church, councils, schools and Westminster – poses an unprecedented organisational challenge for a public inquiry.

“That means that, in reality, the terms of reference in their totality cannot be met,” she said.

“With the benefit of hindsight – or more realistically – the benefit of experience, it is clear there is an inherent problem in the sheer scale and size of the inquiry (which its budget does not match) and therefore in its manageability.

“Its boundless compass, including as it does, every state and non-state institution, as well as relevant institutional contexts, coupled with the absence of any built-in time parameters, does not fit comfortably or practically within the single inquiry model in which it currently resides. Nor is delivery on the limitless extent of all of the aspirations in its terms of reference possible in any cohesive or comprehensive manner.”

The inquiry has a budget of £17.9m for 2015-16 and was initially expected to run for five years, but there have been suggestions it could take a decade to complete at a cost of up to £100m.

Goddard said the smaller scale Australian royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse was given twice the amount of funding. More could be learned from that inquiry, she said, in particular its ability to delegate its hearing responsibilities and its conduct of private sessions to ensure victims and survivors were heard.

She recommended the re-establishment of a separate Truth Project, modelled on the Australian commission, which could fulfil the pledge to hear survivors’ cases, with their information being fed into the main inquiry and individual stories being published anonymously.

This aspect of the inquiry needed to be seriously rethought and while support was in place for survivors who wanted to share their experiences confidentially, “the experience is not a therapeutic exercise” and could no provide long-term support, she said.

“I have recommended in my report to the home secretary that my departure provides a timely opportunity to undertake a complete review of the inquiry in its present form, with a view to remodelling it and recalibrating its emphasis more towards current events and thus focusing major attention on the present and future protection of children,” she wrote.

Goddard, 67, stepped down on 4 August, hours after it was reported that she had spent three months of the first year of her job either on holiday or overseas, primarily in New Zealand. She had been appointed, with an annual pay and benefits package worth £500,000, after May’s two earlier choices for the post also resigned prematurely.

In her memo, Goddard responded to the reports, saying that in the 16 months she spent as chair “there has never been a time when the inquiry and its objectives did not dominate my life. I made a firm commitment to undertake it and was determined to see it through to its conclusion. I am disappointed that this has not been possible.

“It was never easy operating in an environment in which I had no familiar networks and there were times when it seemed a very lonely mission. However, I am pleased I was able to set it on its way. Ultimately, however, I had to face a situation which I could not solve and which would continue unless challenged. I resigned to make that challenge occur,” she said.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the inquiry had a vital role to play in exposing the failure of major organisations to prevent systemic child abuse.

“Our commitment to this inquiry is undiminished. We owe it to victims and survivors to confront the appalling reality of how children were let down by the very people who were charged to protect them and to learn from the mistakes of the past,” she said.

She said Jay had “a strong track record in uncovering the truth and it is essential that she is able to get on with the important job of delivering justice to those that deserve it”.




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