Council leader ‘doesn’t foresee’ councillors standing down after grooming scandal following pressure from opposition

Councillor Lewis Mills, deputy leader of the opposition Conservative group at Rotherham Council, asked the council leader during yesterday’s (February 13) cabinet meeting: “It seems to me that councillors that failed to speak out were too afraid to be coming across as racist and saving themselves instead of speaking out and protecting these vulnerable children.

“Have these councillors got no shame? Will these councillors be apologising for their actions, which in this case were none, and will they be made to resign, so survivors can finally start to trust this council properly?”

Councillor Chris Read, leader of the council, responded that he councillors who were present at he time of the Jay Report “came through a very intense period of scrutiny that the national Labour Party undertook eight years ago.

Coun Read added that “A number of people didn’t come through that – a number of people stood down or were moved aside at that time. A number of people voluntarily stood down.

“Those people were then trusted by their Labour Party members in their ward, the people who know them best to be reselected to stand for election, and then re-elected by the people in their communities, and they’ve done that twice.

“In a democracy, I think that’s the right way of determining who should be allowed to remain as a councillor, so I don’t foresee that they will be standing down.

“All of them , over that period of time, have apologised for the failings of the whole council, the whole system.

“All of those people have also been at the heart of putting things right within the council subsequently. All those people have stepped up, have worked hard over that period of time, to make sure that we’re in a much better place now.

“When people try to make partisan points, political points off the back of that at this stage, that doesn’ty help Rotherham move forward, that doesn’t help build confidence, and actually doesn’t do anything for children in Rotherham today, and I would caution people against doing that.”

Councillor Read added that: “The revelations in the documentary over the weekend are no less shocking than they were eight years ago when we first came into contact with them,” and reiterated a number of actions RMBC has taken to rectify the situation.

“If you look at the actions we’ve taken over the course of that eight year period, making sure our children’s services are good…coming through that government intervention, the most far reaching government intervention that was ever undertaken in any English local authority, and coming out of that with a recommendation about that future.

“And then a whole series of measures that we’ve taken afterwards to assure our practice, in addition to working with the NCA (National Crime Agency) to make sure that all those people who were let down in the past have access to justice, and the support services that we commission.

“I think you’ll find that we’ve gone further probably than any other council, in order to make sure that we try to put right the things that went wrong in the past.

“That does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that is is easy for someone who was let down in Rotherham in the past to trust me, or trust us, or to trust the council, but all we can continue to do is to try to take the right steps, make sure our services are right, and make sure that people can access justice in as far as they possibly can.

“And work towards ensuring that we minimise and prevent these crimes from happening in the future.”