Introduction

The Report of the Staffordshire Child Care Inquiry was published on 30 May 1991 under the title The Pindown experience and the protection of children (Staffordshire County Council, 1991). The term ‘pindown’ was used to describe practice in a number of children's homes in Staffordshire between April 1983 and October 1989. It was said to have its origins in the phrase “we must pin down the problem”, used by Tony Latham, “the architect and leading exponent” (para 1.4) of pindown, “whilst he gestured with his forefinger pointing towards the floor” (Staffordshire County Council, 1991, paras 1.4, 12.18).

The Report identifies several variations on both the practice of pindown and the terms used to describe it, including: ‘basic pindown’; ‘total pindown’; ‘full pindown’; ‘heavy pindown’; ‘strict pindown’; ‘negative pindown’; ‘nasty pindown’; ‘relaxed pindown’; ‘sympathetic pindown’; ‘positive pindown’ and ‘therapeutic pindown’. As the Report suggests, the words “give us a clue as to the approach used in the practice of pindown” (para 12.15) but it is important to recognise how the central term, ‘pindown’, suggests a meaning in advance of any particular definition or explanation. It might seem to tell us all that we need to know about the practices it describes and the people involved.

As well as the practice of pindown, the Inquiry's terms of reference also included scrutiny of the “participation by young persons in care in the activities of undertakings not owned by the County Council and known as Fundwell” (para 1.7). Fundwell was the name given to a “network of voluntary organisations and private companies” (para 13.2) set up by Tony Latham to provide services to Staffordshire County Council. As a name, it seems to permit of a variety of ironic assumptions about the motives, character and actions of those involved. If part of the task of any Inquiry is to simplify complex phenomena and to make them accessible to a wider audience, such headline-friendly and emotive terms as ‘pindown’ and ‘Fundwell’ might be considered an advantage. Inevitably, the underlying reality is more complex and considerably more ambiguous but as one journalist (Christopher Hitchens, The Observer, 12 November 2000) has commented, the ‘perfect scandal’ has to have a name.