The leader of Thurrock Council says people should be satisfied with the outcome of a whistleblower investigation into a toddler’s death...despite not having seen a full report into the allegations himself.

Rob Gledhill said a full report into allegations that errors made by Children’s Services may have contributed to the death of a 23-month-old could not be released because it contained “sensitive information”.

He admitted at a council meeting he had not seen the report, which cleared the council of wrongdoing, but said everybody should be satisfied the council “acted appropriately” now Ofsted had closed the case.

However, as revealed in last week’s Gazette, a serious case review has now been launched into the case - they tend to only take place when a child is seriously harmed or dies as a result of abuse or neglect.

Mr Gledhill said the council does not have the freedom to say which documents can be made public. He added: “From the conversations I have had with the monitoring officer and the Chief Executive, I feel the information given out satisfies me, not because it was given to me by officers but also because Ofsted feel there is no more required of us than what we are doing at the moment. If Ofsted says everything is fine then I am happy.”

Council group leaders were given the opportunity to look at a selection of documents that provided detailed information on the findings in the report, but this took place just two hours before the last council meet.

A similar problem occurred before the last cabinet meeting when the outcome of the probe was rushed onto the meeting agenda, leaving the public and councillors completely unaware it would be discussed.

John Kent, leader of Thurrock Labour group, said while he was not given enough time to read the latest documents in full, they flag up areas of “clear concern”.

He said: “I believe that I do need to see the whole report to get the kind of assurance and comfort that I want and I understand that parts of that may need to be redacted.”

The cause of the toddler’s death has not been established, but police found no suspicious circumstances.

A coroner ruled the cause was “unknown”.