By adrian mullan

All of the social workers, line managers, and senior managers associated with a catalogue of failures which exposed children to danger prior to the tragedy that was the Lammy fire in November last year are still working in child protection.

No-one has been suspended and John Doherty the Trust's Head of Women and Children's Services, while acknowledging that the buck in respect of the multiple failings of his staff does finally rest with him, has declined to resign because he thinks it would be unhelpful to destabilise services at this time.

Following the release of a damning independent enquiry report into the various agencies involvement with the McElhill family who perished in a house arson in November 13 last year, the Western Health and Social Care Trust this week went on the defensive.

The Head of Women and Children Services, John Doherty, insisted that there was nothing in the report which linked the deficiencies attributed to his staff, directly to the tragedy of November 13, last year.

Indeed, that is the finding of the report, by Henry Toner QC, however, it is not a finding that everyone agrees with and Children's Commissioner Patricia Lewsley, has suggested that the tragedy was perhaps preventable. West Tyrone MP, Pat Doherty, also says that a major question mark hangs over the conclusion of the Independent Review.

The Head of Women and Children's Services has not taken steps to suspend any members of staff pending an inquiry into the multiple failings alluded to. Speaking to the UH yesterday he confirmed that the social worker, and the social work manager who failed to have a teenage girl (a friend of Caroline McElhill) removed from the McElhill home, despite the fact that she may have been at risk from sex offender, Arthur McElhill, are still working in child protection. It was suggested to Mr Doherty that if these members of staff didn't understand how to protect the teenage girl in question just prior to the tragedy, they might still not know how to protect children. His response was to suggest that there are now measures in place to

ensure that there is no risk posed. He went on to say that he thought that suspending members of staff might have the effect of identifying them in this small community but stressed that in due course there would be an investigation to determine whether or not disciplinary action was necessary.

So are children under the protection of the Trust's Social Services department protected?

"I think that's a fair question; yes, I believe they are. Because we have been alerted in the midst of the review of the concerns that have been articulated we have strengthened our arrangements, we've introduced a new regional supervision policy, it's about supporting staff, it's about monitoring their practice and making sure that they are delivering the service in line with the way that I expect it to be. We have appointed three principal practitioners, these are experts in child care including child protection. What I have asked them to do, is randomly select case files, and check those out to make sure that the service is delivered in line with regional practices and procedures. Many of the lessons of this are already being incorporated into our practice."

He said that some of the events highlighted in the report refer to June of last year and earlier and that the Trust itself had only come into being a month or so earlier. He said that here was an inspection carried out by the Social Services Inspectorate during the regime of Sperrin Lakeland Trust, "That made a significant number of recommendations; the reason we put the 'Improving Quality Together' programme in place was to make sure that all of those recommendations were taken forward", said Mr Doherty.