Thurso Community Council Tries To Get the Real Reasons For Avonlea Children's Home in Wick closure

29th July 2024

Thew John O'Groat Journal highlighted a letter from Thurso Community Council to Highland council. The controversy surrounding the closure of Avonlea Children's home in Wick and the decision to stop respite care in Thor House in Thurso has left people in doubt about the decisions.

The letter is as follows -

We write to voice and share our grave concerns regarding the events which led to the closure of Avonlea Children's Residential Unit in Wick, Caithness, in December 2022; the change of use of Thor House, Respite Centre in Thurso, Caithness for children and adults with disabilities and the public statement made by a senior social work manager last year that there was no need for respite care for children and adults and their families "in the north."

Despite requests from members of the public and community groups, Highland Council officers and councillors have refused to explain how these decisions were reached.

Briefly, Avonlea was built in 2014 at a cost to the public purse of £1.2 million. Eight years later, in 2022, it was closed. Following good previous reports, there were 2two critical Care Inspectorate reports, first in 2021 and then in 2022. These two reports highlighted improvements deemed necessary (though crucially not recommending closure at that point) but which seem to have been largely ignored by senior social work management.

Consequently, the unit was closed and residents were in effect made homeless with negligible support. In 2023 an Ombudsman's Report following a complaint against Avonlea was scathingly critical of management at local and senior level in Inverness. Additionally, the manager of Avonlea was censured by the Scottish Social Services Council though no-one appears to have been publicly held accountable by the Highland Council.

Thor House in Thurso was built in the early ‘90s specifically to serve as a much needed and used respite centre for children and adults and their families affected by mental and physical disabilities. Obviously, it was disrupted by the pandemic but it never went back to being a respite facility. It presently serves as a residential unit for young people, a change of use which does not seem to have gone through any proper channels. Consequently, there is no residential respite provision in Caithness. Meanwhile a £1.2 million building built for the purpose of being a home to vulnerable children lies empty, 20 miles from Thurso.

Now there is a plan it seems to use Avonlea as an off campus unit for children with special needs whom Wick High School cannot accommodate. The school was opened to great fanfare in 2017 at a cost of £48 million, but apparently designed with no provision for disabled and special needs pupils. Using Avonlea for this purpose will mean separating (marginalising) such pupils from mainstream education and the experience of belonging with their peer group. There is speculation, which there always will be in the absence of evidence, that Avonlea was deliberately closed by Highland Council in order to serve this purpose.

At the end of 2023 a letter, written by a senior social work manager was publicised, stating that there was no need for respite in "the north". It has never been made clear just where exactly "in the north" is. Undoubtedly though, it is a large area. Even the most cursory examination of readily available statistics show that this statement is astonishing, especially when those same statistics highlight that up to 40% of school pupils have additional support needs. It is important at this point to remember that Avonlea and Thor House were Highland Region resources, not just created for Caithness alone. So, their loss is a loss for every vulnerable child and young person in the Highland Region.

In summary, what we now seem have is a purpose built 10-year-old children's home lying empty in Wick since December 2022; a much needed unit, Thor House, purpose built for respite care in Thurso some 30 years ago for people with disabilities, offering no respite and currently being used as a makeshift children's home; and no respite of any sort "in the north." So how did it come to this? Efforts have been made in vain to establish just how the Highland Council reached the decisions which led to, in effect, the eradication of residential child care and respite care “in the north."

Requests have been made over a considerable period of time for information regarding the processes through which these decisions were reached but to date these requests have been met with silence, obfuscation, and it seems in some cases, untruths. A nadir was reached on 9th May 2024 when a small group of councillors put forward a motion at a full council meeting in Inverness requesting an independent review to try to establish just exactly what had happened.

Because of a tied vote, Cllr Lobban (convenor) was required to use his casting vote and he voted down the motion. Significantly council leader Raymond Bremner, ironically a councillor for Wick and East Caithness, also voted against the motion for the most spurious of reasons. In addition, Karl Rosie, councillor for Thurso and Northwest, voted against the motion for reasons which so far as can be ascertained have not been divulged.

Perhaps most shamefully, or should that be shamelessly, Willie Mackay, councillor for Wick and East Caithness didn't vote at all.

Although involved in the meeting, somehow or other he was posted missing when the votes were cast. Incidentally, he is also the high profile chairman of the Caithness branch of Enable, a charity for people with learning disabilities which over a period of many years made good use of Thor House.

Had any one of these councillors, elected by the people of Caithness to represent their interests voted for an independent review then perhaps by now we would have been some way to getting to the truth of this sorry mess. One is left, unsurprisingly, with the vague suspicion that the nasty taste in one’s mouth is that of a hidden agenda being protected. Perhaps there’s a great masterplan somewhere which will soon be revealed and confound us all.

In the meantime, here are some straightforward questions we demand straightforward answers to:

Why was Avonlea allowed to close? A decision as big as that, bearing in mind the cost of the building, its purpose and the vulnerability of its residents must have been made at the highest level. Cllrs Lobban and Bremner must know, as should the current CEO and senior social work management. We request evidence of meetings, minutes of meetings, decisions made by whoever and a clear plan to protect and support the young people involved as well as plans for the future.

What is the plan for Avonlea? Is it to be used as an education base as alluded to above? In the absence of transparency rumours abound.

When did Thor House’s change of use meeting take place, if indeed there was one? We request evidence of meetings at which this was discussed with minutes, as well as evidence that users were consulted and involved in the process. Is respite care going to reinstated? If not, why not?

What evidence gathering process took place in order to inform the author of the letter stating that there was no requirement for respite “..in the north”? Who was consulted, when and where? Where are the minutes of the meetings which must have taken place?

What has happened to the much vaunted “Promise” that the Scottish Government made to the children of the nation and adopted by local councils? It has clearly been broken multiple times by social work managers and those councillors who voted down an independent enquiry. Each one can examine their own conscience. Perhaps Cllrs Lobban and Bremner, as well as the Highland Council chief executive Derek Brown, with the head of Children’s Services might like to come to a public meeting in Caithness?

For those of you who might think that events affecting the north have little to do with you, bear this in mind; in June of this year, Convenor Lobban rejected a motion by Councillor Helen Crawford of Aird and Loch Ness, thus blocking a debate on a plan to give the public more clarity on major energy infrastructure proposals for the area. Nine community councils and a local pressure group supported the motion but to no avail. Mr Lobban has yet to elaborate on his reasoning.

So, is one entitled to imagine that the Highland Council is run by councillors who can act with impunity and with no regard to the fact that they are elected members and who would at the very least show respect and consideration to the voices of the public? There are seven agreed standards of public life; Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership. How many of those would you think describe the activities of the majority of our elected officials? We look forward to hearing from them in the very near future.

And finally, as if all this wasn’t enough, the Sunday Times of 21/07/24 printed the results of a survey of the performance of all Scottish Local Authorities, using key indicators from five key categories - education, crime, community, health and finance. It assessed the Highland Council area as being the worst performing council in the Scottish mainland.

Billy Sinclair
Thurso Community Council
Ormlie Drive
Thurso

Read the story in the JOG HERE