OPPOSITION Lib Dems have condemned ‘indefensible’ failures in Warrington Borough Council’s adult social care safeguarding services claiming Councillors were not given the full picture.
The Group has issued a scathing response to the Care Quality Commission’s report into adult social care, which gave the council the lowest possible rating for safeguarding.
The Commission exposed systemic failings, including the automatic closure of safeguarding alerts, failure to track referrals, and a senior leadership team unaware of these risks until national inspectors intervened. Although the Council claims to have reviewed 1,300 cases with ‘no harm’ found, the Commission was clear that the safeguarding system itself was structurally unsafe.
Cllr Mark Browne, Liberal Democrat Group Leader, said, “This is a failure of leadership and governance. When vulnerable residents are being failed this badly, and the Council’s own systems don’t even spot it, something is deeply broken.”
The Liberal Democrats also criticised the failure of the Protecting the Most Vulnerable Policy Committee to challenge or even discuss these serious issues. A review of the Committee’s most recent agenda shows no dedicated item on safeguarding failures despite the timing of the CQC inspection, only a brief high-level reference to adult social care performance, with no mention of referral triage or alert closures and a forward plan that made no provision for scrutiny of the crisis.
Cllr Sharon Harris, Lib Dem member of the Protecting the Most Vulnerable Committee, said, “Since joining the Committee in 2024, reports that have been presented have been generally positive, celebrating the good work that goes on in Warrington. So it comes as a great surprise to read this report which paints a completely different picture. This makes me question the transparency and accuracy of the information presented in Committee meetings, effectively making challenge and scrutiny almost impossible.”
Cllr Laura Booth, the other Lib Dem member of the same Committee, added, “As a Committee member, I was never given the full picture. Safeguarding was on the April agenda and a verbal report was given to the Committee by the Director of Social Care. That we didn’t get the full picture is a failure of transparency and political leadership. We can’t protect the vulnerable if information is being withheld or filtered.”
Cllr Graham Gowland, Lib Dem spokesperson for Community, Culture & Leisure, commented, “This report is a wake-up call for the whole Council. Protecting vulnerable adults must be our absolute priority, and we need urgent reforms to ensure oversight and accountability at every level.”
Cllr Browne concluded, “We are now calling for an urgent independent review into scrutiny and governance failures and full transparency on how and why the safeguarding system collapsed. The Council’s claim that 1,300 cases show no harm is cold comfort when the entire system was found to be unsafe. It shouldn’t take an inspection to reveal all this. It’s time for change and Warrington deserves accountability, not cover-up.”
In response to the findings, Warrington Borough Council issued a lengthy statement including the following on safeguarding concerns.
“We’re very disappointed with this judgement. It effectively means that the CQC deemed at the time of its assessment that our safeguarding systems, processes and practices were not always effective.
“We want to reassure you that we take this extremely seriously. In response to the report, since the inspection and to provide assurance, we have reviewed 1,300 safeguarding cases that were referred during the first phase of implementing our online form. From these cases we have found no indication of harm, or that our current safeguarding system is unsafe. This is something we have closely liaised with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) about, given its importance.
“We are also actively working with an expert LGA-appointed advisor, who has analysed our safeguarding practices in detail, as part of a diagnostic process. This work is also helping us to drive further improvements.
“Equally, we have discussed in detail the safeguarding concerns raised in the CQC report with the independent chair of Warrington’s Safeguarding Adults Board, who, while understanding the seriousness of the CQC judgement, is confident that our systems and processes are safe – acknowledging there are further improvements we are making.
We hope that through this work our residents and communities understand how seriously we’re taking the report and how committed we are to making improvements and embedding them quickly.”