At a Fornessey conference organised by UK Column in January, women who stayed temporarily at Fornessey House in the east of Scotland and experienced and witnessed abuse as young girls in Glasgow were heard, and work continues to uncover the truth behind this anguish and trauma.
In a report on the medical examination and treatment of school children published by the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Board's School Health Service (1961-1975), Fornessy stated: Special Needs Schools and Boarding SchoolsMore specifically, they were Section B institutions, “boarding schools.”
Such a designation now comes with a legal requirement for inspection to ensure children's welfare is safeguarded and the facility is run to a high standard, so the investigating team working on this case sent the following Freedom of Information request to the authority now known as Glasgow City Council:
It is seeking, under the Freedom of Information Act, all reports relating to monitoring and inspections of Fornessey Residential School, which operated between 1961 and 1991.
Tom Shaw's independent report A systematic review of past abuse It covers the period from 1950 to 1995 and states:
“The law specifies in varying degrees of detail what should be monitored and inspected in boarding schools and children's homes to ensure the welfare and safety of children. Visits and recordings by professionals and laypeople are the main methods of monitoring and inspection mentioned in the law, and visits are to be carried out at specific intervals. (…)”
Therefore, if you have not kept records of inspections and monitoring visits at Fornessey as required by law over the 30 years it operated as a residential school, please state whether you have not kept records because they did not exist or whether you have not kept them because they have been destroyed. If they have been destroyed, please provide documentation showing when, who authorized this and why.
Glasgow City Council Currently, the answer is as follows:
The Council is treating your request as an information request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. Having checked its records, it appears that the Council does not hold the information you have requested, and no one holds any information on the Council's behalf.
Therefore, under section 17(1)(b) of the Act, we are unable to fulfil your request. Fornessy House is not registered as a statutory boarding school. Our understanding is that it was run as a respite centre for children to have holidays and a break. This means that they were not subject to testing at the time. (emphasis added)
Further information about the legal framework under which Fornessey House temporarily received girls from Glasgow can be found in Tom Shaw's report. Boarding schools and children's homes in Scotland from 1950 to 1995 – an independent inquiry led by Tom Shaw (Crown Copyright 2007), pages 79-80:
1987 Regulations (Social Services (Residential Institutions – Care) (Scotland) Regulations 1987) As well as imposing requirements on managers and directors of institutions, it also provided guidance on what arrangements care authorities must make for the placement of children in institutions.
Where the protection authority was responsible for the protection of the child under the child protection regulations; 6 weeks or immediately prior to placement, they may place their child in the following location:
So, it is clear that despite the many laws, statutes, regulations and oversight bodies, Fornessy House appears to have escaped all scrutiny. For one reason or another, Fornessy House was outside the scope of protections offered to children in state custody. For 30 years, it remained that way through numerous legislative environments and two separate oversight bodies.
This is a series of failures that would be unimaginable had they not been identified by Glasgow City Council.
Tens of thousands of girls, though they didn't know it at the time, were going off the rails as they left Glasgow in cars, taxis and buses.pale“Outside the perimeter” refers to an area within a protective wall, an area that is figuratively enclosed and safe. Thus, the idiom “outside the perimeter” means outside of protection, out of reach of help, and in danger. Indeed, the facility where the Fornessy girls were placed was outside the perimeter.
So many more questions remain.
- Why did state-run residential institutions for girls in the late 20th century operate for 30 years without any sort of inspection system?
- Were all these residential care homes (and there were many in Glasgow) left uninspected, or was Fornessey unique in this respect?
- Why does Glasgow City Council consider Fornessy House to be exempt from inspection, even though its legal predecessor, Glasgow City Council's report, classifies Fornessy in the “boarding school” category? did Do you need regular and varied forms of testing?
- Even if Fornessy House was in fact a rest and vacation facility (and we find no evidence that it was ever regarded as such), why would it be exempt from inspection?
- Can you believe that for a combined period of 30 years, Glasgow City and Strathclyde District Councils have never once attempted to check whether the places they are sending thousands of girls to are actually safe?
- If Glasgow City Council proves wrong in its view that Fornessey House is exempt from inspection because of its use, what else, such as deliberate conduct or unjustified omissions, will that reveal?
The answers to some of these questions are then Discovered by Diane Rasmussen Makadi.
