Po-faced bitch....

[lacroupade]

I cannot believe the smugness and gall of this bloody woman....£133,000 a year of public money and she thinks she's immune from taking responsibility for her department. I hope she rots in hell.

http://news.aol.co.uk/discuss-feed/shoesmith-wins-baby-p-sacking-case/1825457/#gcpDiscussPageUrlAnchor

[TONUP]

Her employers didn't follow the rules with regard to dismissing her. Their fault not hers.

Alan

[Fez_uk]

I cannot believe the smugness and gall of this bloody woman....£133,000 a year of public money and she thinks she's immune from taking responsibility for her department. I hope she rots in hell.

http://news.aol.co.uk/discuss-feed/shoesmith-wins-baby-p-sacking-case/1825457/#gcpDiscussPageUrlAnchor

you have too much time on your hands.

[Deleted account DD]

Her employers didn't follow the rules with regard to dismissing her. Their fault not hers.

Alan

I agree, if youre going to shoot someone down do it properly dont just graze them.
However the judgement very clearly stated that she was not absolved of the accusations of failure :thumb2

[macabethiel]

I cannot believe the smugness and gall of this bloody woman....£133,000 a year of public money and she thinks she's immune from taking responsibility for her department. I hope she rots in hell.

http://news.aol.co.uk/discuss-feed/shoesmith-wins-baby-p-sacking-case/1825457/#gcpDiscussPageUrlAnchor

I think she deserved to win her appeal as it was clear that she was sacked by media frenzy and a spineless politician who would not stand up to the media pressure whilst the matter was dealt with in accordance with rules of fairness.

She was a very experienced child care worker working in an extremely difficult area both geographically and emotionaly. For some reason the media did not lay a lot of blame on the Police or Doctors involved. It is also pretty clear that Offstead changed thier tune after baby P had died.

She was after all not a PR manager and the press picked on a vulnerable woman doing a difficult job and in the rush to sell newspapers and exert power they trampled on her in a disgraceful manner.

I hope she gets all the back pay she is owed and her pension re-instated. Its a thankless task being a social worker a role that has been invented by modern society to absolve blame from the community and neighbours etc etc a truly caring community would not need them.

Its the same every time a child dies everyone want to blame someone other than the people who abused the child and clear thier own consciences in the process.

[solarman216]

I would comment, but this is a 4 X 4 forum and so not the correct place, but suffice to say I/we (wife and I) fostered special needs kids for 24 years, some from her department, and they have an awful lot to answer for, Rick

[Thomas-the-Terrano2]

see both sides, perhaps her employer should be sacked, suppose they were.

though if you take the salary you take the risk, in other industries its classed
as corporate manslaughter.

i do wonder though if you are x number of levels of management away from
the staff at the coalface how you really know whats going on.

perhaps the whole chain of command should have been sacked too, or were
they?

[lacroupade]

I think she deserved to win her appeal as it was clear that she was sacked by media frenzy and a spineless politician who would not stand up to the media pressure whilst the matter was dealt with in accordance with rules of fairness.

She was a very experienced child care worker working in an extremely difficult area both geographically and emotionaly. For some reason the media did not lay a lot of blame on the Police or Doctors involved. It is also pretty clear that Offstead changed thier tune after baby P had died.

She was after all not a PR manager and the press picked on a vulnerable woman doing a difficult job and in the rush to sell newspapers and exert power they trampled on her in a disgraceful manner.

I hope she gets all the back pay she is owed and her pension re-instated. Its a thankless task being a social worker a role that has been invented by modern society to absolve blame from the community and neighbours etc etc a truly caring community would not need them.

Its the same every time a child dies everyone want to blame someone other than the people who abused the child and clear thier own consciences in the process.

Well thats a relevant point of view which I respect.

However, it ignores the fact that she was a VERY highly paid individual in charge of a department that failed dismally, not just in its responsibilities towards Baby Peter, but in terms of a systemic failure as far as processes and procedures were concerned.

That happened under her direct management and in most other areas of employment she would have lost her job. I don't know why the public sector thinks it should be immune in such a way?

Yes there were probably technicalities over the actual conduct of her sacking but if she had a conscience she would have resigned. Her sheer smugness at winning her case is simply astonishing and I disagree that its just a media thing - you only have to read the thousands of comments being posted on any of the news sites that have published her case......I think its pretty clear that the majority of the public think her dismissal was right and just. Yet again the media are simply reflecting what most people think I'm afraid.

[briggie]

i think the key word here is responsible .....

as head of department , she would have been responsible for its actions .

my question is , with this huge payout she will be getting ........ how will that affect childrens services budget ?

also ..... is she still responsible for the departments actions .... ie .... is she actually sacked or has she been re instated as a result of this judgement ?

what i fail to understand is how anyone regardless of position in society can be " smug " that they have " won " ....... when ultimately a child has lost its life through the failure of a department / its personel

[Liam]

Isn't it the same in every industry, not just social services? When have you ever heard a manager of any business which fails taking responsibility? They will blame competition, workers, fuel costs etc. Surely their job is to manage and deal with these issues? If not, what the hell are they in charge for?

A child could manage a businness when things are going well, it needs skill to manage a businness when things are not so good. Sadly, most managers now are fair weather managers and the true skilled managers who can work their way through a crisis are few and far between.

I often wonder how these failed managers can can blame everyone but themselves for the failure. Case locally where a thriving restaurant which was owned by a guy who got extensive coverage in the local media and was held up as a shining example to other restaurant owners, goes bust blaming high cost, less customers etc.etc. Strangely, a whole lot of other restaurants in the same area are still open and doing good businness. Go figure.

[extreme-4x4]

i dont see the level of salary should have any effect on the level of discipline, if you mess up then you mess up.

people do , and people suffer as a consequence. thats part of society and the rules we live by.

but if you can prove someone was negligent in there work and messed up , then they should expect discipline
if someone dies as a result of negligence then , thats man slaughter or worse .

my experience is there are very strict guidelines is the social services and police for that matter, and sadly by its own rules dictate it cant cover every eventuality .

social services and others have to work with the benefit of doubt . until they have reason to believe otherwise. but that only works if they are dealing with the truth, and in society you only ever get one side of the story that is truth at best.

its a crap world we live in and if no one lied you wouldnt need these services , but they do . and i have had some raw deals with the powers that be , but you have to accept


its not going to work everytime but on the whole it aint a bad service

[Terranoman]

The only people to blame are the ones that did the killing!!!

And for us allowing people to bred who should not.

[lacroupade]

i think the key word here is responsible .....

as head of department , she would have been responsible for its actions .

my question is , with this huge payout she will be getting ........ how will that affect childrens services budget ?

also ..... is she still responsible for the departments actions .... ie .... is she actually sacked or has she been re instated as a result of this judgement ?

what i fail to understand is how anyone regardless of position in society can be " smug " that they have " won " ....... when ultimately a child has lost its life through the failure of a department / its personel

Well if you want to be pedantic about it, the social workers were responsible. But as their most senior manager, she was accountable.

And she's been held to account.:thumb2

...except now it looks like a sick joke.

[macabethiel]

I agree with much of what has been said and I am not saying that she should not have been sacked after due process or should have resigned following a full enquiry but surely she was entitled to give her account not be sacked on TV on the instructions of a minister?

If we listen to the press who claim to be acting in the public interest when they print only the facts to support their argument without interviewing the person involved you end with something akin to a lynch mob. If we go with the argument that it is to meet public outrage how can that be right if the public do not have all the facts ?

Edd Balls saw an oportunity to gain Political Capital out of the death of baby P and took it.
Do we sack every Chief Constable when someone is murdered in their county as they have failed to protect the public even when officers have failed in thier duty ? No we do not.
Do we sack every Fire Chief when someone dies in a fire? No we do not.
Do we sack every head of childrens services when a child dies ? (There are over a hundred such deaths every year.) No we do not.
So why did they sack her after a hasty second Offstead report (now doubt written on a similar basis to the WOMD report on Iraq) initiated by a Minister.

There are no winners and baby P died but in a democracy we follow the rules and in this case it looks as though the rules were short circuited to meet press induced public outrage. Following her recent court victory the press continue to try to defend their behaviour by the use of inflamatory headlines.

Lets have her case reviewed and give her the basic right to be interviewed and then if the evidence shows her department was to blame then sack her in accordance with her employment contract. If she walks away with back pay and compensation then the person to blame is Edd Balls and the Press for rushing to judgement!

[Deleted account DD]

Edd Balls saw an oportunity to gain Political Capital out of the death of baby P and took it.

agree 100% , and thats where the flaws in the procedure to get rid of her started.


Do we sack every Chief Constable when someone is murdered in their county as they have failed to protect the public even when officers have failed in thier duty ? No we do not.
Do we sack every Fire Chief when someone dies in a fire? No we do not.
Do we sack every head of childrens services when a child dies ? (There are over a hundred such deaths every year.) No we do not.


Times have changed, no we do not is no longer 100% correct,

We are starting too when they can often be seen to have been incompetent and vicarious liability amongst other things requires heads to roll following a failure to respond appropriately to known or perceived threat.

Thus we currently have several senior fire officers facing criminal charges following a major incident. The results of that will have massive ramifications for decision making during critical and major incidents in all organisations.

Responsibility will go straight to the top and land firmly on the desk of the exec/strategic/gold "leaders", call em what you want but its their baby thats why they are paid mega bucks and thats why they are required to fall upon the sword.

So was it right she was sacked? Paul is correct imho, abso100%lutely, and the pratts who followed her ineptitude should too.

Was she sacked in the correct manner ? no good old new (discredited) labour made sure of that.

[macabethiel]

agree 100% , and thats where the flaws in the procedure to get rid of her started.



Times have changed, no we do not is no longer 100% correct,

We are starting too when they can often be seen to have been incompetent and vicarious liability amongst other things requires heads to roll following a failure to respond appropriately to known or perceived threat.

Thus we currently have several senior fire officers facing criminal charges following a major incident. The results of that will have massive ramifications for decision making during critical and major incidents in all organisations.

Responsibility will go straight to the top and land firmly on the desk of the exec/strategic/gold "leaders", call em what you want but its their baby thats why they are paid mega bucks and thats why they are required to fall upon the sword.

So was it right she was sacked? Paul is correct imho, abso100%lutely, and the pratts who followed her ineptitude should too.

Was she sacked in the correct manner ? no good old new (discredited) labour made sure of that.

I agree with all of your comments but do we know all the facts without asking Sharon Shoesmith for her account?

[Deleted account DD]

do we know all the facts without asking Sharon Shoesmith for her account?

Absolutley correct we dont but shes the boss.

i still reckon id sack because she looked smug :naughty isnt that ok :confused:

[lacroupade]

I agree with all of your comments but do we know all the facts without asking Sharon Shoesmith for her account?

We don't but the inspectors who gave her department such a slagging clearly do.

I note she didn't appeal against unfair dismissal, just the easier technicality of not following due process (which is a bit ironic given the way her department appears to have been run), so she obviously knew she was on a hiding to nothing if she had.

And to be brutally frank, I don't really care whose head rolls - if the public and social workers see everyone get away with things scot-free there would be even more outrage....I think it sends a good message personally.