Gavin Jones Chief Executive

Dear Mr Jones,
I am writing this email to you as you are the Chief Executive Officer of Essex County Council.  

This is all regarding social care involvement with my family and then the maladministration of your complaints department.
An overview of what happened to my children can be found here: 

To whom it may concern

An easier to read version can be found in a document sent to myself by then service manager Louise McSpadden on the 29th June 2020 at 21:27.  The complaints  department were copied in by Ms McSpadden on that email so they will have a copy of the document.  The document breaks my complaint down into different sections where yourselves have decided what you will and will not investigate. 

The reason given for not investigated the most serious parts of my complaint was because Social Work England were investigating as is evident on the document.

Initially about 5 different reasons were given by yourselves as to why you cannot investigate customer complaints when Social Work England are investigating, including saying that the regulator acts exactly the same as the LGO.  I dropped out of the complaints entirely given that you refused to investigate the most serious parts of my complaint, including what led to one of my children attempting suicide. 

You just didn’t care, nobody at Essex County Council cared that my child had attempted suicide and was very vocal regarding the cause of that suicide attempt.  I’m fairly certain that other local authorities would be looking into what happened, investigating, talking to the child, and doing everything in it’s power to safeguard the child who had attempted suicide and safeguard further children from the same things.

Your Monitoring Officer, Paul Turner, did an investigation and found  that they should have investigated, for the exact reasons i’d been saying for months, but i’m just a resident so have no voice.  Of course Essex County Council cannot run the risk of any damage to it’s image, so Shamsun Noor then comes back with that I made multiple complaints and the one involving SWE was made late which is why they refused it, so that is the end of the matter.  It was all one complaint, yourselves broke it up into different parts to avoid investigating as much as you can, and the document from Louise McSpadden as detailed above proves that it was refused solely on the basis of SWE and that ECC may have to take disciplinary action.  

Also a nice little dig from the complaints department saying it was all my fault and that I should have thought about that before I raised a concern with SWE, this was days after my child attempted suicide.
Essex County Council is run by people who have no idea what it is like to be a vulnerable resident, even worse, nobody cares. 

You put grand plans into place and enjoy the praise this gets you from other people in ECC and in other Local Authorities, not caring that this does not translate into improving the lives of residents.  A lot of decisions are made by those who have absolutely no idea what it is like to be a vulnerable child or adult in Essex. 

My lived experience of Essex County Council is that decisions are made for the benefit of those running the council more than for the benefit of the residents of Essex.  A hint of something going wrong, and you are not open and transparent, you just lie some more.  If something ticks a certain box then it gets done, it doesn’t matter if it will be of benefit, it is done solely for making ECC look good.

I am angry over the way myself and my children have been treated.  I am angry that my child attempted suicide and the reasons for that have not been investigated.  I am angry that my child could attempt suicide again, i’m angry that someone elses child could attempt suicide,  Also angry that my child told social workers the reasons why they attempted suicide, but because you refused to investigate, the social workers could only stand there and say nothing.  I’m angry over everything you have done, and everything you have  failed to do, including failing to give one of my children an education for 4 years.  I am angry that you treat residents like dirt.

I am angry that 9 weeks ago when Paul Turner, Monitoring Officer, told me that Shamsun Noor was now saying that I had multiple complaints and it was refused as it was late, he then ghosted me when I told him that wasn’t true and pointed him to evidence that proves that.

I am angry that the document sent to myself by Louise McSpadden on the 29th June 2020 at 21:27, together with what Shamsun Noor stated to Paul Turner, proves maladministration and misconduct.  Yet absolutely nobody at Essex County Council cares.  Paul Turner literally didn’t reply to any of my emails regarding it, or even bother to acknowledge them.  He was involved as i’d made a complaint against a councillor, I withdrew the complaint after realising that ECC’s complaints system is solely there for the benefit of ECC.  You can brag about how amazing your complaints team are, even allowing them to buy an award at the publics expense.  To the point where Robbie Watson-Levey has stated publicly that they are the first local authority to ever be finalists.  Which is true, but not because they are so great, but because they are paid for awards and decent local authorities would never waste £2500 of public money to make themselves look good.
I’m angry because I have other complaints, one regarding the lack of education for one of my children with autism which means they missed the last 4 years of their secondary education, another because social care withdrew last September after promising they would do things and then didn’t.  I also had a compliment, which I did submit in September 2020, they are meant to be acknowledged in 5 days, it’s been nearly a year.  Your complaints department is corrupt, it is not fit for purpose, it does not protect the public, it does not give yourselves an opportunity to put things right when they go wrong. 5 different reasons as to why they couldn’t investigate the worst parts of my complaint, all proven wrong.  Now it’s that it was submitted late.  Where complaints are concerned a resident of Essex is not going to get a fair hearing.  

I am angry that my family is in a much worse position than we were 3 years ago, all of us, i’m so exhausted that i’m making myself ill.  I have 3 children with autism and when I needed support there was only blaming us and destroying our lives.  Then when it was obvious you had got it wrong, instead of quickly apologising, putting things in place to stop it happening again, you have spent the past 18 months with lie after lie in order to ignore it as it is not in keeping with your image.
Then when it’s proven by your monitoring officer that my complaint should have been investigated, you double down and lie some more and then refuse to even acknowledge me when I point out how easy the new lie would be to disprove.
I’m angry, i’m upset, and I am disappointed.  I am also embarrassed that I ever believed that Essex County Council would act in the best interests of my children or myself when we complained.  My childs complaint got ‘lost’.  Well it wasn’t lost, Jo Prosser  just didn’t want to acknowledge it.  Then when she did finally acknowledge it, there is no record of any investigation done by her, because there wasn’t one.
ECC is not run with a view to enhancing the lives of the residents of Essex, it is run with a view to enhancing the egos of those at the top at ECC.  This email does not require a response and I really do not wish to hear any more lies from yourselves, they are incredibly damaging.  I already know what will happen with regards to this email.  In the very unlikely even that you actually read this email in it’s entirety, or read it at all if your assistant decides it’s not important enough, it will just get deleted.
That’s how vulnerable residents are dealt with, by ignoring them and their needs.  It doesn’t matter to you that a family has suffered significant harm due to ECC, as long as ECC are getting praise and recognition for different things which don’t actually benefit the residents, it’s all good.
Your complaints department has spent over a year coming out with lie after lie, and spreading those lies to other departments.  The lies change, the reasons they wouldn’t investigate changed every single time I proved them wrong.  They twisted legislation, they have blackened my name, they have made me out to be a liar. They have stated that Social Work England exonerate social workers when SWE don’t even make a finding of fact.
I’ve been told time and time again that my complaints have been fully investigated, when you know they haven’t been.  You lied to avoid investigating the reasons behind my childs suicide attempt.  I’ll say that again, you lied to avoid investigating a child’s suicide attempt.
I now give the link to the post i’ve linked above titled ‘To whom it may concern’ to all professionals involved with our family so that my children and myself don’t have to keep telling new professionals what they have been through.  Despite them having done so on multiple occasions, your refusal to investigate means that what is causing my children’s issues, especially with mental health, isn’t on record. 

The childs voice is only important when it is saying what you want to hear.  When my child has told multiple professionals the reasons behind their suicide attempt, the childs voice was silenced.
I spent a year pointing out that the various excuses you gave as to why you wouldn’t investigate serious complaints were wrong, when Paul Turner investigated himself and found out I was right, instead of getting an apology, or anything at all, I just got told that it doesn’t matter because they were submitted late.  It actually doesn’t matter that there is written evidence that shows that is not true, it stands, that is your current narrative.  This is your monitoring officer  who is condoning this behaviour by yourselves.

The document i’ve signposted you to above which was sent by Louise McSpadden last June is all the  evidence that is needed to prove you are still lying.  I’ve got all the evidence, just nobody to show it to as I shouldn’t even need to convince a local authority on something when they have the same evidence I do.
You are untrustworthy, corrupt, and dishonest.  That is ECC as a whole.  There is not one single employee at ECC who has been willing to challenge the complaints department, even when they knew what the complaints department were saying is wrong.  Even the monitoring officer who investigated and found that what the complaints department was saying was wrong let it slide when they came up with a new lie.  

It does make me angry and frustrated that it is so easy for you to lie.  Regarding your current narrative that my complaint was refused because it was submitted late, it has been so incredibly harmful.  I immediately sent Paul Turner an email detailing how that wasn’t true, various emails, because he didn’t acknowledge what I was saying.  I went in depth as to where the evidence could be found to show it wasn’t true, supplied him with some myself.  Not even an acknowledgement he’d read my emails, that was 9 weeks ago.
Then he expected me to trust in the complaints system enough that I would participate in the complaints process regarding a complaint I made against a councillor, so I withdrew the complaint.  I’m not setting myself up to be on the receiving end of a complaints process that is neither fair nor impartial.

You are the chief executive of a local authority who treat residents as the lowest of the low.  A child attempts suicide and your thoughts are about how you can avoid any blame, no matter how much more harm that will cause the child.  You have caused my children and myself significant harm which is still ongoing, you have refused one of my children an education for the past 4 years, you abruptly stopped the help we were getting last year.  I cannot even complain about those things because your complaints department is absolutely corrupt.

I have dealt with a lot of professionals in my life to do with my children, I have never experienced the level of uncaring that my children have been subjected to by Essex County Council when things went wrong, when my children were vocal about what went wrong.  Starting with Jo Prosser who did not investigate my child’s complaint, to Paul Turner who accepted the latest lie Shamsun Noor told and didn’t even bother to acknowledge my emails showing him the evidence that what Shamsun Noor had said isn’t true.
Essex County Council ticks boxes, it does not put the resident first, my experience has been that so many employees at ECC have absolutely no idea what it is like to be a vulnerable resident of Essex, and nobody actually cares.  

You have caused extensive long lasting harm to my family which is still ongoing.  Simply because the ethos at ECC is that if you can get away with it then everyone above will cover for you.  Pam Parkes had the opportunity to challenge what the complaints department were saying as she would have instantly known what they were saying wasn’t true.  The correct thing, the ethical thing, would have been for her to challenge that the moment she read it.  She didn’t because that isn’t in the best interests of ECC and that trumps the best interests of residents.

The residents are right at the bottom of the food chain at ECC, we don’t matter, our views don’t matter, the lives of children do not matter.

I cannot change how you act, but I am in control in how I respond to the way my family have been treated, hence this email, it’s purpose is solely to say what I need to say.
I’m in the process of  setting up a new blog so that the information is easier to understand for a wider audience, i’ll be focusing mostly on the parts of the document from Louise McSpadden that you refused to investigate, as that gives the general public a clear view of how serious what happened was, and together with all of the different excuses why you wouldn’t investigate, shows how far you are willing to go to avoid responsibility when things go wrong.  I’ll supply all of the evidence I have regarding what happened and put that in the posts.  My old blog was more therapeutic, although sharing certain posts with people does make things a lot easier instead of having to explain over and over again what happened.
I then intend  to raise awareness, my plan was initially to hope some organisations would put pressure on ECC to change the way they do things to protect children and families from the harm that was caused to us.  My experience with Paul Turner and Shamsun Noor has proven that ECC is utterly resistant to change.  It will take me a while to finish the new blog as I have 3 children with autism.
Families are not safeguarded in Essex.  After a 3 and a half hour ICPC where I took both morphine and diazepam in front of everyone because I was refused a break, two of your managers kept me behind for a further 30 minutes and brainwashed me into believing my husband had sexually abused my children.  You cannot state that didn’t happen, part of it has actually been admitted to, but you refused to investigate so all ECC can say is that you don’t know.  The same with why my child attempted suicide, you cannot say it wasn’t because of the allegations my child has made, you can only state that you have refused to investigate.
I would like for things to be put in place to safeguard families in the future from what happened to mine.  ECC have spent the past 18 months doing everything and anything they can to avoid being held accountable.  Up to and including the latest narrative that I had multiple complaints and some of them were refused because they were late, which is utterly utterly ridiculous, but easy to do when ECC controls the narrative.  ECC have significantly harmed my family, absolutely nobody cares, we are just seen as collateral damage.
ECC is run with the egos of those in charge at the forefront.  There is so much online where every single person in a position of power at ECC are telling the world how proud they are of themselves, how well they do things, how great they are.  I have not been able to find one single thing where anyone at ECC has detailed something that had gone wrong, held themselves accountable, and put things in place to stop it happening again.  All over social media it’s all positive, except for comments by the public.

You are closed off to the public, there is no caring there, you just don’t.  Nothing any of you do is ever challenged by your peers.  You are all just there to high five each other while telling the residents of Essex how brilliant you are.  No organisation does things right all of the time, the proof of an exceptional organisation is one that will genuinely be open and honest when things go wrong, instead of making a resident of Essex have a breakdown by coming out with false excuse after false excuse as to why you cannot investigate her child’s suicide attempt.

You have an ethos that you are the best, which is why things like this happen.  The ethos should always be about trying your best, being open when it’s not good enough, and taking swift action.  Not digging your heels in and coming up with more rubbish.  When you are refusing to investigate a child’s attempted suicide then you have absolutely no right to say you are doing well.

I am under no illusions you will read this email, it is actually written for my benefit.  If you have and don’t understand it, Paul Turner will be able to explain it easier.