Aberdeen City Council has apologised for insisting the attendance record of local child protection chiefs should be kept secret.
The local authority told The P&J that “lessons have been learned” over its initial refusal to be “open and transparent” about the information.
The council has now revealed that members of the city’s child protection committee (CPC) have one of the best attendance records of any CPC in northern Scotland.
However, it is still refusing to release the names of the committee members, despite most of them being highly-paid NHS, council and police bosses.
CPCs help monitor and co-ordinate support for society’s most vulnerable youngsters.
But concerns have been raised about recent attendance rates in parts of Scotland.
Under freedom of information laws, The P&J asked 11 councils north of the central belt to provide an attendance list.
Every local authority we contacted provided the details – except Aberdeen.
The city council initially refused, saying the committee members were not aware that such information could be released, and that it could identify them.
The reasoning was subsequently branded “questionable” and the authority’s culture of “secrecy” was heavily criticised.
‘Not complied’
We asked the local authority to review its decision to refuse our request.
It has now carried out a review and decided to “uphold” its original response.
However, it said: “The review panel considered that the council had not complied with
its duty to provide sufficient advice and assistance, and the duty to be as open
and transparent as possible, even when applying an exemption to information.
“The review panel therefore agreed that the applicant be provided with some
statistical information with supporting narrative, by way of advice and assistance.”
It added: “We would like to apologise that this was not provided at the time.
“Lessons have been learned and officers will be advised and reminded of their duties under the freedom of information legislation.”
The data now released by Aberdeen City Council includes its own figures for attendance rates and average number of “apologies” per meeting.
It was unclear whether it had included every member of the committee in its calculations, however attendance levels appeared to be higher than the figures for most other CPCs.
The council said its local child protection committee has had an average of fewer than two “apologies” at each meeting in the last two years.
This compares to an average of 11 at the Perth & Kinross committee in the period, almost 10 in Dundee, nearly nine in Angus, almost seven in Fife, six in Argyll and Bute, under five in Highland and about three in Aberdeenshire and Moray.
The council also said that the Aberdeen CPC had an absence rate of 17% since the start of 2020.
We previously reported that the rate in Moray was 16%, in Aberdeenshire it was 17%, in Highland it was 21%, while Argyll and Bute’s rate of “apologies” was 26%.
These were significantly below the 43% we calculated for both Perth & Kinross and Dundee CPCs in the period, as well as 38% in Angus and 31% in Fife.
In revealing the conclusions of its freedom of information panel review, Aberdeen City Council said: “As can be seen from these tables, we have very good attendance at Aberdeen City CPC meetings across agencies and services.”
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