Sharon Shoesmith wins appeal against sacking.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/3p5zjc4

Do you agree that she should never been sacked from her job in the first place?

Seems to me she is in line for enough compensation to retire on, although it appears that is for another court to decide.

But since it appears it was all Ed Balls fault, perhaps it is he who should be help to foot the bill, if any compensation is granted?

[bazwillrun]

"dismissed without due process" are that 'ole chestnut.

Typical civil servant in my opinion


I wasted a whole year working for the British Council in Spring Gardens, ask a civil servant about their job and they werent too fussed, no rush, it can wait.

ask them about due process and they will be able to quote you the rule book for ages non stop, oh they can always tell you about their rights and entitlements until its time to stop work just like the rule book says.

[mike11111]

What a "balls" up!

[DTCwordfan]

She should have been sacked as the No 1 Lieutenant Fuehrer in charge of the SS. She should not have been sacked by that Obe-Lieutenant Fuehrer, Herr Balls. That was disgraceful and smacked of tabloid newspaper management.

What should happen now - a small pay off and she formally offers her resignation. Cheaper for the TaxPayer viz the cost of Appeal and damages etc. She should accept as she could be removed with proper procedure, and she should not want the Press raking her over again.

I guess she could hire the Max or go for a Diggs-style Injunction?

I don't think any of us would liked to be fired without proper procedure as hinted at by one contributor here.

[DTCwordfan]

Oh, and an apology from the Balls. IMO he comes across with a very smug persona.........

[owdhamer]

Sharon Shoesmith was head of her department and well paid for the responsibility,and yes she deserved to be sacked for negligence, but someone made a balls up of doing it and now compensation will set in.I only hope she has the grace to donate it to charity.

[albaqwerty]

legally she won Morally she shouldn't have.
Also morally she shouldn't even have had the neck to appeal

[sandyRoe]

Could she have been looking over the shoulder of each and every one of the social workers in Haringey?

[DTCwordfan]

Can a soccer manager score goals or stop them?

Can a hospital manager do the stitch up of an A&E patient?

Can a General directly prevent a bullet hitting one of his troops.

No, but they can influence policy, work conditions, training, risk assessment and all the rest. And that is what Shoesmith was responsible for in Haringey. There were serious flaws in the system and as Commander, she should take the can for the system failing, not per se the death of Baby P.

As was pointed out she had a legal win today, but definitely not a moral one.

[mrs_overall]

Very well put DT

[sandyRoe]

Have all the leaders of childrens services departments where a child has died fallen on their swords?

[DTCwordfan]

No but plenty have for system failings......

[hc4361]

Who would be a social worker today? Can't do right for doing wrong.
They're taking kids from families - how dare they take a child from those lovely parents?
They're leaving kids with families - how dare they leave a child with those animals?

Massive caseloads, massive stress. If you were dealing with problem families and little children day in, day out, could you sleep?
I'd be worried sick.

Kids in care aren 't happy kids, and they aren't always well looked after. The vast majority of foster parents are fantastic. A very small minority is evil.

Removing a child from a parent should be a very hard decision. Hindsight makes decision making easy.
Dodgy, abusive people can be very sly and appear to be a lot better than what they are.

There is no way I could do that job. I sincerely believe that the majority of social workers give 100% and more, but sadly a slight error can have horrendous consequences.

A slight error for a supermarket cashier means giving change for a tenner instead of a fiver. Hardly the same.

[DTCwordfan]

wit

http://www.communityc...utive-mike-wardle.htm

[vodkancoke]

She was on the news earlier saying that being pointed at in the street and people having a go at her was ruining her life.....my heart bleeds! Hatchet-faced cow will probably get millions in a pay out, allowing other incompetant people in her (old) position to do the same thing! It will never end unless it is shown that there is a punishment in place. If only she had bothered to put so much effort into looking after the poor children who have and who probably still are suffering at the hands of idiot junkies.

[woofgang]

IMO Ed Balls is an idiot as are his advisors. I have done disciplinaries in the nhs and rule one is stick to the procedure like glue. If there are any anomalies then you resolve them before beginning the procedure and if there is any doubt then you resolve it in favour of the disciplined employee if at all possible in order to demonstrate that the process has been fair and more than fair. What you want is a watertight case with no grounds for appeal, no stage skipped rushed or mishandled, nothing undocumented. If there are grounds for appeal then you have failed. You get your investigations over, evidence lined up etcet before you start the process. The folk in the council will have known this, must have done but when the govt rides roughshod I guess there's not a lot you can do.....I do so hate incompetence especially when allied with arrogance.

[Arti]

Although her sacking was unlawful, I wish that she had not been successful today. When so many people were reeling at the horrors that this lovely, innocent little boy suffered, she made no reference to the poor boy's plight. Instead she started to talk about being able to show graphs and charts of how successful her department had been. Heartless. When she said, today, that the Baby Peter case will be with her for the rest of her life, I took it to mean her treatment, not his.

[buildersmate]

For anyone interested in the legal answer as to how this ridiculous situation has happened, it is because in law the employer has to demonstrate that they had a fair reason to dismiss and they followed a fair process. It is the latter that Ed Balls managed to deliver in line with his surname.
The Court of Appeal was not saying that the reason for dismissal (failure to manage) was unfair - if you listened to Ms Shoesmith interviewed after the judgement, she was very careful to stress that she was treated unfairly by the process she was put through.
In short, she was not given adequate opportunity to put her case as an appeal to the employer before the dismissal was confirmed.
Its pathetic because it is so fundamental to emplyment law; for Ed Balls to claim he took legal advice just beggers belief

[woofgang]

i think that there should be able to be a rebuttal here that says that despite due process not having been followed, if it had been followed then the outcome would have been the same therefore the appeal is not upheld.

[boxtops]

woofgang, that's too sensible ever to happen ;-)

I don't know how she can show her face in public, that's taxpayers' money she's trousering, after one of the most disgraceful child abuse cases.