Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Daily Mail reports Baby P social services boss set for £1million compensation payout
Baby P social services boss set for £1million compensation payout after court rejects appeal against claim she was unfairly sacked
Article in the Daily Mail
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by james walsh on
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I read somewhere that the compensation settlement was expected to be somewhere around £12 million
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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The Daily Rant says at least £53 million James. Oops! This is incorrect. The Sunday Bile estimated £107 million.
Time for a quick replay of the Dan & Dan video?
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Recycling has been amazing, but I digress...
I really hope Ed Balls has to sell one of his houses to help Haringey cover the costs.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Steady Osbawn, Alan will start assigning numbers to the points you make, in case you dare repeat them.
The BBC account is here
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Permalink Reply by Protheroe O'Shea on
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Who are the under performing staff and teams?
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Hi Osbawn. Thanks for cleaning the out in the sand pit in finsbury park playground last weekend. If that was not you sorry for sounding so cryptic.
To answer you question. Yes i have many many positive stories about LBoH. I worked in the autism team. It was a brilliant service which saved the borough hundreds of thousands if not millions by giving schools ,parents, families and children with autism the skills to remain in mainstream schools. It was was a truly fantastic cost effective service as it left a long term legacy. as did may departments within the children's and families service.
It was staffed by diligent local professionals who knew the borough and it's people. LBoH did some fantastic things but the media don't think its news worthy. I work in autism for the Royal borough of Kingston children and learning service and I can assure you LBoH kicks their asses in pretty much all aspects all. Including safe guarding, actually I firmly believe that LBoH has some of the best trained staff when it comes to safeguarding. In the Children and families service we had to do training every month. Not to keep up with other boroughs but to keep ahead. once again the media don't like to talk about that.
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There are two ways to spin the Haringey story. Two fairy tales. Or "narratives" - to use the fashionable and silly jargon.
In one the Council does absolutely everything badly. Chief Executive Jack and Leader Jill not only tumble down the hill, smash the bucket, and give Jack concussion. They also poison the well, and sell-off the last bit of green in the borough to dodgy property speculators.
In the second story Jack and Jill discover the well has almost inexhaustible reserves of the purest mineral water - with amazing healing properties. They start a successful municipal business; which makes billions so there are no cuts, no taxes and and nobody in Haringey is ill ever again.
So perhaps, Osbawn, a yes or no "Does the Council do anything well?" is the wrong question. Because in real life, most of the time we are looking at infinite shades of grey.
"The Council" still has a few thousand employees who do a huge range of different tasks for different groups of users. Over the years I've come across many staff who are skilled, enthusiastic and committed to the borough. They do things well and sometimes very well; a few are superb. Although there is also a smaller second group - those who consistently fall below the needed standard. But is any medium-to-large organisation so very different?
I expect it will annoy and perhaps even enrage some people when I say that I don't include Sharon Shoesmith in the second group.
Which doesn't mean that I am uncritical and/or gullible. Nor that I lack a 'this-finger-is-loaded-you're-fired' macho style idealised in The Apprentice. I just want grown-up discussion and debate with opposing views presented and respected. With the aim of learning from and avoiding mistakes and making better decisions.
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Haringey Council said it was "bitterly disappointed" with the Supreme Court's decision.
If Sharon Shoesmith had had the chance to put her case to the then Children's Secretary (Ed Balls), before he sacked her (which is what the case was about), would that have made a difference to his decision?
Most of the circumstances are now well known. Since her sacking, Sharon Shoesmith was interviewed on Radio 4 Woman's Hour and made statements to the media in her defence and some of us will suspect we know the answer to that question.
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The Guardian reported that:
A view which will surprise nobody at all, since that was the whole purpose of the application to the Supreme Court. Incidentally, there isn't an 'Education Department'. (It's called The Children and Young People’s Service.) And I doubt that "it" has a hive-mind group view.The education department said it was "very disappointed to hear that permission for leave to appeal to the supreme court has not been granted".
The idea of an future meeting between between Sharon Shoesmith and Ed Balls might make an interesting TV play. But it wasn't part of the proper legal process the Minister and Haringey were required to follow.
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Well Alan if anyone, anywhere at the council is disappointed to any extent over this outcome, I share their disappointment.
If anything like one million pounds of tax payers' cash is to be given to this woman, in these circumstances, it will either be paid by increased taxes or more likely, directly or indirectly, by cuts to services.
While its easy to muse on what might make an interesting TV play, it shouldn't be forgotten what led to this. A toddler on the Child Protection Register was tortured to death. Jason Owen, who allowed Baby P to die, could be released from jail this week.
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Clive, I haven't and never will forget the murder of Peter Connelly.
I also accept that staff - including the most senior staff - and "cabinet" councillors should be held accountable when things go appallingly wrong. Our friend Ian Willmore wrote several good articles on this issue in 2002/ 2003, following the murder of Victoria Climbié. (1) (2) (3)
But we will have to agree to differ on whether this justifies either the vilification of Sharon Shoesmith or ignoring employment law.
The suggestion about a conversation between Ed Balls and Sharon Shoesmith was yours, Clive. My comment about a play was not light-hearted. With a good writer it could be searing as well as tackling important issues.
There's some dialogue in Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" which had a powerful impact on me.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
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The suggestion about a conversation between Ed Balls and Sharon Shoesmith was yours, Clive.
Er no, this was what Sharon Shoesmith was arguing for.
But given all that we know since, I find it hard to think of anything that could have been said that would have changed, or should have changed, the decision of the then Childrens Secretary, Ed Balls.
There is no suggestion that Shoesmith wanted this to happen; much less caused the sickening chain of events. I think that what annoyed people (and the media picked up on this) was the perception of a lack of caring about what happened and certainly little acceptance of any sense of responsibility for what happened – often a problem at LBH. I seem to remember Shoesmith or one of her supporters saying, almost dismissively, that one should expect this sort of thing to happen from time to time. (in that case, why bother with social workers and an At Risk Register?
Just as with Haringey Parking Services, there was a perception of a lack of humanity, but this time it was closely identified with a woman who brandished statistics and it is said, powerpoint presentations.
I agree with Osbawn about poorly performing employees: deal with them robustly.
Plays can indeed dramatise serious issues. Perhaps I'll enjoy a play about this one, after Haringey Childrens Services is fixed.
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