A manager told the Lampard Inquiry that he was instructed by a senior colleague to clear a backlog of 4,000 incident reports, some dating back to 2021, by marking them as “gone.” The reports allegedly involved serious incidents, including self-harm, racial abuse, and assaults on staff, raising concerns about administrative oversight.
Instructions to Clear 4,000 Incident Reports
Testimony provided to the Lampard Inquiry has revealed that a manager was directed to process thousands of outstanding incident reports that had accumulated over several years. According to reporting by the BBC, a senior staff member issued a direct instruction regarding the backlog: We need to get these gone.
The backlog consisted of approximately 4,000 reports, with some dating back to 2021. The manager described the contents of these documents as including serious safety and conduct issues, such as self-harm, racial abuse, and physical assaults on staff members. The instruction to process the files did not prioritize a review of the incidents themselves, but rather the rapid reduction of the pending count.
“There wasn’t, ‘Can there be a thorough investigation of these and can you feed back?’ It was, ‘We need these gone, we need these processed and we need them gone’.”
The manager, via BBC
Manager Concerns and Inquiry Context
The manager expressed significant discomfort with the directive, noting that the urgency appeared to be linked to an ongoing inquiry. He suggested that the sudden push to clear the backlog may have been a reaction to the scrutiny the organization was facing at the time, rather than a genuine effort to address the reported incidents.
“The first thing that popped into my head was there’s an inquiry going on and they’re panicking about these because no-one’s looked at them – that was my first thought and that’s what I still think.”
The manager, via BBC
When tasked with the process, the manager began closing some of the reports but eventually halted the work. He told the inquiry that he felt unable to put my name to this and say I’ve thoroughly investigated it because I haven’t.
Disappearance of Remaining Records
The status of the remaining reports remains unclear. After the manager stopped processing the files, they stayed visible on his digital dashboard for a significant period. He testified that they eventually vanished without his intervention, leaving him uncertain about whether any further action was taken to investigate the underlying incidents.
The manager concluded his testimony by expressing skepticism that the reports were ever properly handled. They sat on my dashboard for a very long time then disappeared one day,
he stated. I don’t know whether they’ve been dealt with. I doubt it.
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