The recent post strike means that magazine deliveries have pretty erratic but Private Eye has now started arriving again. The latest issue includes an intriguing item about Tower Hamlets Council in its Rotten Boroughs section. The following internal email to Tower Hamlets staff has been leaked:
"From Wednesday 11 November to Friday 20 November, the Care Quality Commission…will undertake an inspection of Tower Hamlets Council delivery of adult social care services…During this period, the inspectors will be meetings with people who use care services, their carers and frontline staff. The will also be "mystery shopping" for social care information across a variety of council locations throughout the borough…"
Astonishingly the email then provided two links so staff could "see what the inspectors look like." Photos of the supposed "mystery shoppers" Laurie James, Jacqueline Corbett and Melvyn Sequeria were provided. It speaks volumes for the mentality of Tower Hamlets Council that, rather than welcome a chance to identify how they could improve their services, they treat an inspection as a challenge to erect a Potemkin facade of good practice especially for the benefit of the inspectors to ensure they are protected from the reality.