It is responsible for overseeing the funding of Welsh local authorities

It is responsible for overseeing the funding of Welsh local authorities. It operates the system of inspections that so clearly failed to identify or do anything about abuse that took place over many years. A version of the Jillings report is sitting on Mr Hague's desk, awaiting his return from a trade mission to the United States It is not Mr Hague's report. But, at the end of the day, in the highly imperfect world created by our system of local government, it seems that, politically, Mr Hague's office is the only place where a decision about publication can be taken.That is not completely illogical The Welsh Office is not immune from criticism. It says it is a matter for Municipal Mutual, but Municipal Mutual is winding down.So this is the situation. One of the worst child abuse scandals ever is met with a wall of organised irresponsibility and buck passing.

The history of abuse and mismanagement at the homes is compounded by the way the imperatives of the private insurance market and the secrecy of local government have worked together to prevent publication of a vital report.As a result, answers to even the simplest of questions are difficult to obtain: who is now responsible for deciding whether the report should be published? Put another way: whose report is it?It seems the answer to both questions will be William Hague, the Secretary of State for Wales. Responsibility for the report has now passed to Flintshire County Council, which has "administrative" responsibility for it Pinning down the insurance company is just as difficult. Municipal Mutual, which was a leading local authority insurer, went bust in October 1992. Most of its business was then bought by Zurich Mutual, a Swiss giant Zurich Mutual denies it has any responsibility for the case. There are still other allegations that this has provided the council with a convenient excuse for not publishing the report.That is not the end of the story, though. Neither the insurance company nor the council exists any more. Clwyd County Council was swept away at the end of March in another wave of local government reorganisation.

The insurer is alleged to have warned the council that in those circumstances it would not provide cover for the claims against the council. Another suggestion is that the council's insurers, Municipal Mutual, warned councillors that the report would help the victims to pursue claims for damages against the council. There are some suggestions that the council's legal advisers warned that the report was libellous. It is said the council took this decision because it feared publication would lay it open to legal claims. Yet none of the 14 reports into the affair, 12 of them internal, has been published This is a cover-up on a massive scale. The public is being denied information about how services operated in its name have been systematically exploited for the purposes of sexual abuse of the most vulnerable children.