As mentioned elsewhere on this site Mr Gary Fitzgerald is Chief Executive of Action on Elder Abuse who are Honorary Members of PAVAUK.

Both organisations have sat on the review of 'No Secrets', the progress of the consultation has not gone as expected.

Below is a letter which he has sent to us and on the subpage you will find a response from The Department of Health.  Perhaps members may wish to make representations to the DoH through whichever medium you feel will be of use.

 Dear all

We have been in discussions with the Department of Health (DH) for some considerable time in relation to the Consultation Report on No Secrets and the next steps for Safeguarding Adults, including at a Programme Board that was held on 1 September 2009. Following our discussions the DH have now issued us with the attached letter which they have agreed we may share with other people.

There are two aspects to the current situation; the first relates to what has happened to date, and the second relates to what is likely to happen (and in that regard we can do no more than predict what is possible). Both of these are important, because we need a firm foundation and understanding of what people contributed to the consultation if we are to understand the position and challenges of adult safeguarding and how to move forward.

Our view is that the consultation process was flawed, and that this was carried forward into the consultation report itself. For this reason we engaged in further discussions with the DH and we believe we have now established a reasonable response to our concerns. The key points are:

a) It is two and a half years since the consultation was first announced, twelve months since the launch of the consultation itself, and six months since the conclusion of that consultation. We still do not have a formal Government response, although it has been promised (in a Parliamentary reply to Paul Burstow MP) that this will occur before the end of the year;

b) Although the Government initially emphatically stated that the Consultation Report had adhered closely to the code of practice on consultations, it is now apparent that their aim was instead ‘to reflect it as much as possible’ in the report (which is of course not the same thing). While there is no doubt that they faced a formidable challenge in this regard simply because of the number of questions and the detail of the replies there is also no doubt that this was obvious at the end of January and should have been built into the planning. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, we have what we have, and there is little point in dwelling upon this point any further.

c) Individual chapters of the Report do not reflect a balanced analysis of submissions made and a good example is the Health Chapter which does not include the submissions or observations of any organization or individual who is not actually working in Health. No observations from organisations representing patients have been reflected and this was not the intent of the consultation process. The attached letter goes some way toward acknowledging this and states that ‘the review team … will be going back to the original information rather than just looking at the consultation summary when considering specific issues in detail.’ This clearly is reassuring and is to be welcomed;

d) The early chapter of the Consultation Report is poorly titled. It is now apparent that it is not ‘key messages’ from the consultation in its totality, but is instead a summary of the views of some organisations who are user-led (but not all those who are user-led). It therefore does not represent all the key messages from the consultation but is instead key messages from a particular part of the consultation. Our concerns in this regard related to the omission of legislation as a key message (given the overwhelming response seeking framework legislation) and we therefore welcome the DH response, ‘You asked me to confirm that the issue of legislation being placed in a chapter on legislation did not preclude it being ‘a key issue’. I am happy to do this;‘

e) The question of legislation is a crucial one and we believe we have now established some common understanding with the DH on this matter. Our view was that the responses needed to be categorised in a manner that separated out concerns expressed about intervention powers from the overwhelming desire for a framework within which adult protection can operate. The Report had referred to 'legislation' without making this distinction and nor did subsequent presentation, thus giving an impression that concerns expressed were linked to legislation in its totality. Framework legislation can be introduced without negating the legitimate concerns expressed about powers of intervention.

So, where do matters go from here? Ultimately the decision rests with the Minister who can, regardless of the strength of feeling on legislation, decide that it is not an option. That is how our democratic process works. However, we are satisfied that we have now established sufficient clarity on the consultation process that it is not necessary for us to pursue the above points any further.

All things being equal, it is probable that there will be a No Secrets version 2, and that there will also be sector specific guidance. There will be clarity on the full range of current laws in relation to safeguarding (which is certainly needed). And (we suspect) there will inevitably be some commitment to legislation to establish a safeguarding framework in relation to Boards, but much less likelihood of intervention legislation. Time will tell in the next six weeks or so as to whether our predictions in this regard will be right or not.

But of course (to use a horrible phrase) the elephant in the room is the impending General Election and what impact that may have on any commitments given at this late stage.

It has just taken so long to get from the announcement made in June 2007 to here…



With all best wishes



Gary FitzGerald