Response to Evening Standard story

7 June 2011

The Evening Standard today published a report claiming that: “Two senior lawyers are being paid tens of thousands of pounds to do the same job.”

This is not true. One lawyer who was due to retire early this year agreed to stay on part time for a matter of months to help the acting Head of Legal because there are currently vacancies in that service. He is helping to deal with the workload resulting from there currently being fewer lawyers. Such work is quite separate from that done by acting Head of Legal.

The Legal Service is one of the areas that we are looking at possibly sharing with Waltham Forest Council as a cost saving measure. While discussions about that possibility are ongoing, it would not be sensible to appoint a permanent Head of Legal. The same applies to the other vacancies. These measures are saving the council money.

The Evening Standard also claims that the council took legal steps to protect its own position concerning the Baby Peter case. Again, this is not true and we are considering action against the newspaper.

The actions undertaken by the council in the courts, which were notified to the news media at the time, were taken in order to safeguard and promote the welfare of children involved in the case. Haringey has never sought any Reporting Restriction Orders in relation to the role of the council in the Baby Peter matter.