In our modern world - new challenges arise as we battle with where the right place is to draw the line between legislating to prevent discrimination - and the freedoms we treasure to believe and practise whichever faith we may follow.

An example would be the relatively recent case of a registrar whose religious beliefs led to her refusing to perform a civil partnership ceremony for a gay couple in Islington. In our modern world - there is no place any longer for conscience or belief (just as with likes or dislikes) for an individual to refuse equal access to public services.

So - when I say the 'modern world' throws up new challenges - years ago this dilemma would not have existed because being openly gay itself was illegal. It is a measure of how far we have travelled that to not register a civil partnership is now illegal. I know I came in for a fair amount of chatter on the Internet amongst religious sites for saying, during the committee stage of the Equality Bill, that given these new challenges people would have to basically go into a different job - meaning that if your religious belief is going to make it impossible to carry out your work in the public sector - then that job is not going to be the right one. For those in the job as the world changes - of course - this is a very difficult circle to square - but in the end (and I believe quite rightly) access to public services cannot be anything other than free of religious belief.

So - that bit is relatively simple - perhaps more complex is how far and in what circumstances can or should the state expand beyond where pubic money is spent.

I spoke a bit about politics generally - but also in particular some of the issues that had arisen thus far on the Equality Bill where there is undoubtedly a clash between religious freedoms and state requirements in the dispensing of public services.

One particularly interesting part of the discussion, I thought, was in the Bill there is a part that says of say a Christian Church in terms of employment - it's OK to discriminate in employing the Vicar and only Christians need apply (pretty obvious) but that employing a youth leader or indeed caretaker that protection would not exist and that employment must be open to all.

The caretaker scenario no-one seemed to mind being a non-discriminatory position but the Youth Leader - people thought should be able to teach and lead in a Christian way - given it was a youth group belonging to the Church. So - I want to throw that over to comment as there is a clash between State and Church on this issue - where principles clash and both have right on their side.

I had not been reassured by the hasty press release by LNC saying that the first letter had been confusing and re-issuing a version which changed the Whittington’s fate to being designated a ‘local hospital’ in the options rather than mentioning A& E at all.

‘Local Hospital’ if you look up its meaning on the Department of Health website means that A& E would be reduced to effectively ‘urgent care’ for between 8 and 16 hours per day with no emergency surgery on site. Given the level of need locally – the idea of people having to travel to the Royal Free which has appalling public transport access – does not seem to be designed with local people in mind at all.

Moreover, Haringey which doesn’t actually have a hospital, relies on both the Whittington and The North Middlesex for A & E – and the North Middlesex' A & E is also under threat in one of the current four options.
Anyway – today I had urgent meetings with both LNC (Stephen Conroy) and the Chief Exec of the Whittington (Rob Larkman) - separately. In terms of LNC – Mr Conroy was very keen to emphasise that nothing was final, that options were still being discussed and drawn up, that no decisions had been taken – and that the options (whatever they ended up as) would go to the Review Panel in December and pre-consultation in January. To avoid the elections – the public consultation on the options would be in September 2010. So if the letter hadn't been leaked - local people would not have had any say before the election.

The proposals are all around what should be provided where and which of UCH, The Royal Free, Barnet, North Midds, The Whittington and Chase Farm would become ‘major acute’ hospitals and which local.
When I pushed for assurance that the 24 hour A & E service at the Whittington would not be terminated – Mr Conroy could not and would not give that assurance.

I also asked him what autonomy and status the Whittington Board had in all of this. From his answer it is quite clear that whilst the Whittington Board’s opinions are important, they are considered ‘organisationally loyal’ and when looking at the bigger picture of service needs in the ‘sector’ it would be the LCN who would take the decisions.

We also pushed (I was accompanied by Cllr Nigel Scott, LibDem local health spokesperson and Ed Butcher, my Head of Office) for openness and transparency about the processes. We are concerned that by the time there is a wide public consultation (as I said - after the election) – the basic decisions will have been made. That first letter stating that the Whittington would have no A & E even though withdrawn – has left its mark – and I can’t help thinking that where there’s smoke….

It has also been pointed out to me that the Whittington sits on top value land – and that letting the hospital wither on the vine of ever reducing services might at some point enable land sales to a cash-strapped Strategic Health Authority – I hope not!

At the subsequent meeting at the Whittington Hospital, Rob Larkman (CEO) said that they had been shocked too by the letter stating that A & E would not be provided in any of the options and that it was his challenge on that letter that had forced LCN to put out the second letter.

In fact I think the Whittington Board may, to an extent, be an ally of local people in the fight to retain A & E and maternity and obstetrics. The Chair of the Board was also in attendance at this meeting and he said that the Board also fought for what the local community wanted and needed.

So to me, the crucial issues are not the labels that LNC may wish to give their new configurations of major acute, acute, local and so on – the key is still keeping important services like 24 hour A & E and maternity and obstetrics local at the Whittington - whatever the configuration.

I made it quite clear that I would, apart from keeping in close contact with what is happening, make sure that local people are kept informed about what is going on and about what I regard as a real threat to both the 24 hour A & E and the continued provision of maternity and obstetrics at the Whittington – and that I would be campaigning along with my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Haringey and Islington for what local people want and need.

Women now have the vote on the same terms as men. With the majority of the electorate female - and indeed the majority of actual voters at the last general election female too - what's there left to worry about, one might ask?

Well - with only around one in five MPs female, there's a big difference between what goes in to the electoral system (majority: female) and what comes out (overwhelming majority: male).

So what I want to address in this piece head on why I believe this matters. It is in everyone's interests to have a Parliament that is made up of the best people for the job, and that includes a range of people who can best represent the diversity that exists in our communities. If we don't have the best, and if we don't have a Parliament that fully understands how issues look to people from all those diverse viewpoints, then we get worse decision-making - and we all suffer from that in the end. To take a very simple example - if you have a Parliament passing laws on fighting crime which doesn't understand the perspectives of people under 25, then those laws will not be as effective - and we all suffer as a result.

Now you don't necessarily have to be of a particular group or community or whatever to be able to understand and represent its views. But in general it certainly helps.

Would a Parliament full of people over 70 have some MPs who were good at understanding the viewpoints of those under 30? Of course it would - but it would be even better at doing that if not all the MPs were over 70. The same applies to gender. Yes, some men are good at understanding and representing the views of women, and vice-versa. But when you have a Parliament that is four-fifths men, we are far too close to that everyone over 70 situation.

Now people sometimes say - ah, but if you can't point to an example of an act of explicit discrimination, then the system is fair and doing anything to fix the results means we won't be getting the best person for the job. So I'm going to try to tackle that head on.

First, when you have the number of female MPs at record levels - but still a Parliament that is 80% male - I think it fair to ask, "Are you really, really sure there's no discrimination going on anywhere?" As prima facia evidence goes, that's pretty strong stuff. Of course, it doesn't make the case in itself, but I think too many people are too complacent in the face of what should be a shocking figure.

And, I would ask - do you really think that if you picked the 646 best people for the job of MP (using whatever definition of "best" you think suits), you would end up with four out of every five of them being male? Do you really think the distribution of talent, ability, experience, knowledge - whatever goes in to your definition of "best" - is so lopsided amongst the population that the result is that four-fifths of those people are male?

I am happy to acknowledge that there are - on average, in general, with individual exceptions - differences between the sexes. Yes, if I needed someone to run with an urgent message as fast as possible then, other things being equal, I'd ask a man as on average men are faster - or even, dare I say it, better - at running than women. Just as it would be wrong to assume that all men are faster than all women, it would be foolish to close our eyes to the differences on average.

But what such difference could there be that would justify four-fifths of MPs being male?

Certainly there are aspects of the way our political system works which typically appeal more to men or are more off-putting to women, but those are not aspects that are engraved in stone and always have to be that way. Take the bear-pit performances (and I use that word kindly - embarrassing shambles might often be more appropriate) of the PM / Leader of the Opposition exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions, with massed ranks of people sat behind each and shouting at each other. That sort of behaviour would be completely unacceptable in a work place - imagine running a meeting at work where people behaved like that. And there's no essential need for PMQs to be like that - look around at how other walks of life and other countries manage to have question times that are meaningful and dignified.

And in this example is where, I think, some good news can be found. For tackling issues like this would not only tackle the male/female imbalance, they would benefit politics overall.

But most importantly, we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the gender balance of Parliament as if it doesn't matter. There is no one magic wand to fix any and all problems, but we can only fix problems if we acknowledge they exist.

Noble in aspiration maybe - but it makes a mockery of serious government. Laws are not about warm words - or shouldn't be. This Labour government has so devalued both legislation and this legislature. The Queen's Speech was full of it.

I felt so frustrated listening to Gordon Brown producing the same old tired lines. There is no life left in this Government - too much of their energy has gone on politicking and too little on the good stuff. If they had concentrated over their twelve years on making things work - rather than bravura statements that achieved nothing  - perhaps it might have ended differently.

Today just sounded like an obituary.

If you read the four options on the first letter sent out by Rachel Tyndall, CEO for North London Central NHS which was sent to all relevant  hospital CEOs and Medical Directors but not dated, you can see how stark and clear the message is about the future of A & E at the Whittington:

From the letter:

This provided 4 possible models for North Central London, namely:

 a)      Barnet and North Middlesex designated Major Acutes, Royal Free designated a major acute with specialist services, UCLH designated a specialist provider, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 b)      Barnet and North Middlesex designated Major Acutes, UCLH designated a major acute with specialist services, Royal Free designated a specialist provider, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 c)       designated a Major Acute, UCLH and Royal Free designated major acutes with specialist services, North  designated a local hospital with an A&E and medical take, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 d)      North Middlesex designated a Major Acute, UCLH and Royal Free designated major acutes with specialist services, Barnet designated a local hospital with an A&E and medical take, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

As you can see - all four options kill off A & E at the Whittington. The position put out by Rachel Tyndall in her letter was crystal clear - that the Whittington would loose its A&E, and therefore its ITU, and acute medical and surgical services.

This position now, rather abruptly, appears to have changed with a hasty and strange press statement put out on 13th November to the effect that the letter had "led to some confusion". No it hadn't - it was perfectly clear - no emergency service at the Whittington. 

So - whilst they try and back-peddle to offset any mounting campaign to save our vital A & E at the Whittington - let me just make quite clear that I do not trust the Trust. They want to close our A &E. They don't appear to understand that the 240 people a day who attend A & E are in great need and moreover could not make it to the Royal Free where the proposed services would have gone. The transport and access to the Royal Free for local people here in the West of Haringey is too dreadful for words. Moreover - local people want, need, deserve and have paid for an A & E here at the Whittington.

When will this dreadful Government and these dreadful, NHS beaurocrats, who seem only to rearrange and restructure, begin to understand what people want and need from their local health services.

Merging some services between the Whittington and the Royal Free is one thing - denying local people a local, 24 hour A & E and the services to go with it is another.

The consultation NHS North London claim to have done was a sham - a couple of weeks in August basically - hardly exhaustive given the dramatic nature of the proposed changes.

They may draw in their claws for now - but the letter makes quite clear where NHS and the Government want to go with their plans. No amount of weasel words will be able to deny their direction of travel.

The battle lines are drawn!

For several years I got involved in the search for the so-called Night Stalker in regard to the way the Met Police were collecting DNA samples from black men in South London. I was on the Met Police Authority for five years at that time.

I hope they have got the right man. The fear and terror perpetrated for so many years on older women who lived alone by this man was the most terrible thing in this part of London. It would put an end to a very long nightmare.

My involvement was really sparked by the police methodology used at the time when they asked for voluntary testing of the DNA of black men in the area.

As reported on Guardian on line:

The DNA trawl met some resistance in 2006 after the Met was accused of sending threatening letters to men who refused to take part.

Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority questioned its legality and warned it could inflame community tensions.

(I think their dates may be wrong - as I left the MPA in 2005)

The ask of local black men was to come in and clear themselves of any suspicion by having the DNA test - perfectly reasonable. Except that in the event if a black man refused to come in and refused the test - they were then effectively threatened into a position where 'voluntary' was in reality compulsory. Threatening letters were sent - I saw them.

It's a very difficult situation where there is a real desperate need to find the person. The police knew from descriptions from witnesses that the man was a light-skinned black man. The decision was to test all black men in the area. Clearly co-ersion was not acceptble - but the frustration of the continued attacks and the years of non-success obviously took its toll.

An additional issue was that when DNA samples were taken from these thousands of black men - that DNA was also retained on the database forever - regardless of the fact these men were innocent. Of course, with the recent case in Europe, the Labour Government have been forced to agree to no longer keep information on innocent peoples' DNA on their database. Typically, however, the Government has decided that it will keep it for six years.

DNA is the most brilliant detection tool - but it still can only be used for corroborating evidence in a court of law. So let's hope that the man they have arrested is confirmed as the attacker by his DNA - that is the purpose of DNA evidence. 

What is less known or talked about in terms of DNA is that it was the policy of the Labour Government to collect the DNA of people who might (in their view) be likely to commit crimes in the future. This was a complete turnaround on our justice system where we have been used to being 'innocent until proved guilty. Here was a policy that said basically that you are guilty until proved innocent. Hence the astounding position of the black community who find that around a third of the whole black and ethnic minority population of this country is held on that database . That happened - because of the high rate of disproportionate use of Stop and Search on that community. The other community over-represented on the database is the youth population.

Some years have passed now since my time on the MPA - but the issues around DNA, disproportionate use of police powers and the retention on the database of potential future suspects who are actually innocent at the point of having their DNA taken are still an issue.

I will be very interested to see why this man has taken so long to catch (if it is him) because, whilst eliminating suspects by DNA tests is a logical move, another problem with the DNA route to detection is that the police for that period were so focused on getting black men to come forward for DNA testing - they may have been distracted from perhaps more fruitful lines of enquiry.

Well - we will see when the details come out as to how and why the 'night stalker' was arrested and hopefully that will inform us whether DNA was the key to detection or simply to corroboration.

The Rabbi, David Mason, joined parents and children at Stationer's Park planting tulips, daffodils and crocus bulbs around the base of the trees. In February - it will be awash with blooms! There were also lots of other activities such as outside Sainsbury in Muswell Hill where more volunteers asked those going into shop to buy one extra thing to give to a local charity. Last year - when I helped with this activity - people were so generous we could hardly keep up with the volume of stuff being donated.

What is so fantastic is that it is about giving time not money - and that makes people feel good about themselves too! And given the storms and the downpour - the sun actually came out for the day's planting. They say the sun shines on the righteous.

Well done to Muswell Hill Synagogue and all those volunteers across the country who have given up their time for Mitzvah Day.

At the meeting were representatives from Haringey Council and the local health service who told me about their various initiatives to spread information and target prevention work with particularly vulnerable teenagers.

They are working closely with local schools to improve sex and relationship education, and to help identify groups of young people at risk. The team also uses a special dedicated website to help schools and parents learn how to reach out and talk to young people about the relationships and safe sex. There are also plans to set up special vending machines to give young people across the borough access to contraceptives and Chlamydia testing kits without having to approach an adult. To check out the website go to: http://www.ruthinking.co.uk/

There wasn't much said about educating the boys - which has to be as much part of the answer as the rest of the program. However, there clearly are genuine efforts being made to tackle this issue - the answer to which ultimately must be about aspirations so that young girls don't see falling pregnant in their teens as the answer to life.

I am meeting some of the young girls in a scheme that sees them volunteer in a nursery with a support team discussion after each session as to their thoughts and feelings. The meeting is scheduled for later this month. The idea behind that is a dose of reality as to what it is really like spending time with babies and toddlers - not all sweetness and light!

You can also watch it on YouTube here.

But I think it was also what I was saying about the need for an open and transparent culture, about the job being about trusting social workers to use their instincts and critical faculties rather than ticking boxes - and outside of case load reduction - perhaps the main drum I bang is the way that the pendulum has swung far too far towards management holding sway regardless of professional and clinical opinion.

I hobble on to the Spectator Annual Awards where strangely Harriet Harman and Peter Mandelson won the main awards. Was it an ironic parting gift to those who would not be in power by the next time the awards come around?

After that, I gave up and came home and put ice packs on my foot and laid down for the evening. I managed to do my advice surgery this morning at Hornsey Library - but then decided I couldn't go on. I had to reschedule my Big Lottery Tour this afternoon  (as I really can't walk) so went to the Whittington and then came home. Hoping for tea and sympathy from my children.........................

I have reached the next stage in my quest to get the Serious Case Review into Baby Peter's death published - and beyond Peter - the publication of all Serious Case Reviews. A Serious Case Review (SCR) is produced immediately after any such case by the agencies involved in that child's care. It tells the chronological story of who did what and when. It is an invaluable document - but it is kept secret.

I have been battling to change this. I have asked the Information Commissioner to find in favour of publication in the public interest. I don't believe that the ambition of that over-used phrase 'lessons must be learned' can ever be fully realised if the causes and actions are hidden as they currently are.

The Information Commissioner recently came back to me to ask for more information as to why I thought it would be in the public interest for the SCR to be published. I sent him my reasons (below) and now the Information Commissioner is going back to Haringey Council for further information.

As I await the decision - although I have previously blogged about this - I regard continued public scrutiny as so important that am putting all of this in the public domain again.

This was my email in response to the Information Commissioner's request:

Having been Leader of the Opposition on Haringey Council when Victoria Climbie died and now MP in half of Haringey during the Baby P tragedy - I have come to the conclusion that a contributing factor to cases like these (and others) is the secrecy, the closing ranks culture and the lack of transparency.

The Serious Case Review (version 1) which I was allowed to read virtually under lock and key in the Department of Education (where I could not make notes or record any part of the document) was an eye opener to me. The executive summary of the same document which is published did not reflect the key problems, in my view, that were at least part-causal in the eventual tragedy.

The thing that struck me most was the litany of casualness with which people did their jobs (appointments missed, not followed up; files lost, handovers not done, meetings not attended). There was a litany of failures like these at every level, virtually by every person and every agency. I think that most people would expect that once a child is on the protection register and their case being brought to the Safeguarding Board - that there would be a rigour about all aspects connected with them.

This casualness and lack of care is only really demonstrated if you get to read the whole document. It does not come through in the summary and itself is cumulatively causal in my view.

Literally hundreds of professionals across the country emailed me about their knowledge and experience - as did the general public. I believe that the phrase which is dragged out 'lessons will be learned' won't be fully possible if the facts of the case and the failures in the case are kept hidden. As I say, the Executive Summary does not reveal the extent of the small, but cumulative failures - which I believe many professionals would recognize in their own fields and therefore be able to do something about. Therefore it must be in the public interest to be able to see the whole document.

Simply issuing another 150 Laming-like recommendations every time a tragedy happens simply adds procedures that take professionals away from their work without ever being able to see the why and wherefore of such recommendations - nor to judge or be able to critique the new ways from an informed position. The issues are kept between local authority, the other agencies and the Government - so keeping out those who would, could and should benefit from reading the whole story.

I am not an expert nor a professional - but unless and until we really open out all the issues around cases such as these - there will continue to be an air of defensiveness and self-protection which work against the safety and well-being of children at risk.

Social workers need to work in an atmosphere of support and good management - which can only come from opening up the real events, letting them stand there for all to see - and those in the professions taking those lessons away.

The argument Ed Balls makes to me against publishing the Serious Case Review is that staff would not speak freely if they knew that what they said might be published. My view is that anyone working in any field where there is such an event has a duty to speak and say what happened. They would have to if the case goes to public inquiry or hearing. Names and personal information should be anonymized. It was anyway in the SCR I read and social workers were referred to as social worker 1 or social worker 2. It is also the case that quite a lot of time elapses between the event and the publication as the SCR is written immediately (usually) and the case and the trial and exposure comes much later.

OFSTED did an audit of Serious Case Reviews and found that nearly two thirds, I believe, were inadequate. So - additionally - this would not have come to light without OFSTED's exposure. If they were published - these inadequate SCRs would have been exposed much earlier. So - whilst the Serious Case Review I am most concerned about is obviously the Haringey one - it is clear there is a wider issue too.

So - I believe it is totally in the public interest for the Serious Case Review to be published. Secrecy, lack of transparency and openness and closing ranks are at the heart of the problem in Haringey.

I hope you find in favour of publication.

Kind regards
Lynne Featherstone