Baby P Boss Wins Appeal

[Letters]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13570959

An ex-children's services director says she is "thrilled" to have won a Court of Appeal battle over her sacking after Baby Peter's death in 2007.
Judges allowed Sharon Shoesmith's challenge against a High Court ruling that cleared former children's secretary Ed Balls and Haringey Council of acting unlawfully.
The education department and Haringey plan to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Baby Peter Connelly was found dead in August 2007 with more than 50 injuries.
Ms Shoesmith's appeal against watchdog Ofsted was dismissed.
Ofsted said its report on Ms Shoesmith's department, which identified "insufficient strategic leadership and management oversight", had been vindicated.
A Haringey Council spokesman said it was "deeply disappointed" by the judgement and stood by everything it had done.
Baby Peter Connelly was found dead in August 2007 with more than 50 injuries and the subsequent Ofsted report exposed failings in Ms Shoesmith's department.
In December 2008, she was sacked, bringing her 35-year career to an abrupt end.
Ms Shoesmith said she first heard of her dismissal when then children's secretary Ed Balls announced she would be removed from her post with immediate effect in a live press conference on television.
She said after the hearing: "I'm over the moon. Absolutely thrilled.
"I am very relieved to have won my appeal and for recognition I was treated unfairly and unlawfully."
She said the sorrow of Peter's death would "stay with me for the rest of my life".
"But as the judges have said, making a 'public sacrifice' of an individual will not prevent further tragedies," she added.
Ms Shoesmith had asked Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, sitting with Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Stanley Burnton, to rule that her sacking without compensation was so legally flawed as to be null and void.
Her lawyers had argued that she was the victim of "a flagrant breach of natural justice" after she lost her £133,000-a-year post amid a media storm.
Ms Shoesmith also argued she was entitled to her full salary and pension from Haringey up to the present day.

Hmm. There is a school of thought which says that if you're the boss of a department which makes this kind of mistake then you should bloody well be sacked.

[Niall_Quinn]

Government, different rules. The real world only applies to the victims of government. We can all sleep more soundly now knowing another brown shirt is on the case ignoring the guilty and bringing the innocent to justice.

[Nozza!]

Hmm. There is a school of thought which says that if you're the boss of a department which makes this kind of mistake then you should bloody well be sacked if you are found to have been in breach of your contract following an impartial hearing free from outside political influence.

Oi, mush, bang on the money as usual...

[Letters]

Nice to see you've brought your bleeding heart with you to the new site.
So it doesn't matter if you're in charge of a department through whose gross negligence a child is tortured to death?
Fair enough.

[Nozza!]

Nice to see you've brought your bleeding heart with you to the new site.
So it doesn't matter if you're in charge of a department through whose gross negligence a child is tortured to death?
Fair enough.

Oi, mush, of course it matters...but I rather admire Sharon Shoesmith as she wouldn't be made a scapegoat for political expediency...She was the victim of a witch hunt designed to deflect attention from the real problems of under funding in social services, intolerable work loads for social workers, too much administration for front line workers and poor communications between child protection agencies (police, NHS, schools and social services)...it was tragic that Peter died of course and more should've been done...but social services were just one small part of support network that let him down...

Good to see you've brought your poor grasp of the issues and knee jerk proclamations with you...

[Letters]

She was boss of the deparment whose staff made numerous visits to the family in question.
They dropped the ball. Massively.
The buck should stop with her (in the same way that people are calling for Wenger's head right now. It's the players putting in the crap performances but he's the one who ultimately takes responsibility).

There are I'm sure a load of issues which need addressing to stop this sort of thing happening again but this was a family known to social services and their job is to stop this sort of thing happening. You say yourself that more should have been done. Whose responsibility was it to make sure that was done if not hers? (Again, assuming that if her staff cock up then she's the one who ultimately should take responsibility).

[PGFC]

It's another Ed Balls-up, it should never have been handled this way, justice would have been served much better if she'd been roughly pushed over after being asked politely to move on.

[Nozza!]

Oi, mush, all good stuff...but explain to me how Sharon Shoesmith can in Ofsted's eyes go from providing "strong and effective leadership" to the devil incarnate?...She may well have been ultimately responsible for the Baby P's death but political meddling and Ofsted's ass covering meant that she was not afforded a fair hearing. I have heard Sharon Shoesmith on a number of occasions on the radio - she comes across as a determined, caring and committed woman, all attributes you would expect someone to have in her position...surely you can't be arguing that just because there is a emotive issue, normal practice goes out the window?...


Not sure your analogy with Wenger works, he is blessed with a embarassment of resources in an endeavour which can hardly be called life or death...

[Letters]

I don't think she's the devil incarnate but she was in charge of a department which made a catalogue of mistakes which resulted in a child's death.
I'd expect the boss of such a deparment to be sacked.

[Nozza!]

Oi, geezer, we're getting closer to agreement...Ofsted undertook that review and it was after one the previous year that was glowing in it's praise for Ms Shoesmith...did things really fall apart over a year? Which one of the Ofsted reports was a true reflection of the situation (knowing Ofsteds method of working it was the second one when they knew it would be under significant scrutiny)...but that does not take away from the fact that there was political pressure to sack her which led to a ripping of the employment rule book...something which is both unfair and unacceptable... or are you willing to turn a blind eye and claim the end justifies the means?...


The real tradegy is that there are other Climbiés and Baby P's occurring even as we type...my guess is that the current wave of budget penny pinching will not make child protection any easier and that sooner rather than later we will wake to another child death and another enquiry into the failings of the social services...the underreported legacy of the Baby P / Shoesmith case is that the both new recruits and old hands are thinking twice about their futures as social workers...