Comments on: Baby P: Ed Balls Statement In Full And Sun’s Failed Campaign

By: Janet Lloyd

Janet Lloyd — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:09:26 +0000

Is everyone missing the point of who is to blame for Baby P’s death - the parent ***edit***! The social workers, doctors and police did not kill this child. Yes they were negligent in their enquiries and perhaps more training is needed but to have them sacked for an error, i don’t wish to underestimate the severity of losing a human life. Why are the professionals being blamed. There is a huge shortage of social workers who are overworked and stressed. The salary isn’t particularly brilliant to cope with the stresses they take on, yet we wish to sack them so that the parents never do this again??? Can we ensure that the parents are named and shamed and dealt with accordingly. Money needs to be put into educating and training more social workers to cope with the demands of our evil society. There will be more deaths as there are more and more sick adults who feel that its ok to kill their children and yet they don’t seem to be held responsible. Who really should be educated here? The parent - do we now blame education for letting them down? Where does it stop? Why blame, can we not just do something positive about it.

By: Jenks

Jenks — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:21:40 +0000

The Baby P episode, as horrible as it is, is just one more error in a catalogue of disasters under this inept Government.
Sharon Shoesmith has rightly been suspended, also could there be a case for her to be prosecuted? Especially when one dwells on the nightmare and horrors that Baby P had to go through, due, no doubt, to the failures of Jaqui Smith and her cronies to spot what was going on.
We can only hope that that Gordon Brown, who incidentally, should go back to Scotland where he belongs, takes some drastic action and perhaps redeem some of the Labour Party’s atrocious record, although I and thousands of others doubt this very much. One would also hope the salaries of those guilty persons should go to children’s charities where it could go a long way to perhaps alleviating more suffering.
CJ

By: June

June — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:06:37 +0000

There was one whistle blower , and she got shouted down

By: chenier

chenier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:01:59 +0000

Well if nothing else it’s given us another question; we are all used to ‘who watches the watchers?’ but what we need to know is ‘who reviews the reviewers?’.

I would perfectly happily see the editorial staff of the Sun tossed off the top of Canary Wharf, but the Serious Case Review carried out by Haringey was abysmally flawed.

If Ofsted, the Healthcare Commission and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary hadn’t been called in, we would still be being told that it was all very sad but there was nothing which could have been done about it.

That clearly wasn’t true; safguarding in Haringey, and possibly a lot of other places as well, ‘needs urgent and sustained attention.’

It won’t get urgent and sustained attention if no-one knows it needs it.

However tainted the motives of the Sun, it can reasonably claim that, without the media coverage, there would have been no critical appraisal of what went wrong…

By: June

June — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:57:29 +0000

the lower echelons may be heaving sighs of relief, and perhaps ready for promotion? not only that if they have been working under the duress of bad management better people might emerge.

By: coolandcalm

coolandcalm — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:37:49 +0000

and who on earth would ever want to work in Haringey to plug the gaps? or any other lousy catchement area come to that. I know I wouldn’t.

By: Anorak

Anorak — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:29:20 +0000

If everyone is sacked, then what? A chasm… The Sun is going to f*** it up

By: chenier

chenier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:11:38 +0000

Cool and Calm

The report seems to be heavily critical of the management, which is something of an advance; whether it will be carried through into senior people actually taking on responsibility for junior staff is another matter…

By: coolandcalm

coolandcalm — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:23:37 +0000

Spot on June. fingers crossed.

I’m happy that the people at the top are having to take responsibilty instead of the individual Social Workers who had little or no supervision and huge unmanageable case-loads.
Like the Social Worker who had to carry the can for Victoria Climbie,
However, I’m sure the Sun disagrees and will hound them as infinitem coz that’s what they do best.

By: chenier

chenier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:20:49 +0000

Well, according to the Evening Standard:

‘Two top councillors at Haringey fell on their swords today’

Funny, I could have sworn they were pushed…

By: June

June — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:11:05 +0000

Perhaps the focus of the ‘targets’ will move now from paperwork etc to where it should be on vulnerable people

By: chenier

chenier — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:07:45 +0000

The Sun will undoubtedly claim that, were it not for the Sun, Haringay would have carried on in its own inimitable way, and battalions of children would have been slaughtered to appease the requirements of breaking news and reality tv.

The really nasty bit is that the Serious Case Review was so abysmally badly done that every other Serious Care Review in the country is put in doubt; I wonder what’s happening everywhere else?

By: Anorak

Anorak — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:51:10 +0000

Will the Sun let it lie?