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So the wheel has finally turned and my earlier prediction (that Ms. S.S’s dismissal would end up in the Courts) has proved to be true.
But is is all now as it seemed those months ago when the media pack was in full blooded pursuit of Sharon and she was painted the female version of Adolf Hitler?
If you recall, she was then the head of Childrens Services for Haringey Council and presided over the entire huge department responsible for the education and welfare of children in Haringey.
The ‘Baby P’ disaster happened and (to cut a long story shorter) following a public outcry – whipped up in no small part by the tabloid press – Ed Balls (the Government Education Secretary) not only commisioned an urgent ‘report’ but also publicly pronounced her guilt and that she should be immediately sacked.
So Sharon Shoesmith went from earning a salary of £125,000 plus, as a very senior council officer at the top of her profession, to being summarily dismissed without ANY compensation at all and publicly humiliated into the bargain.
As it now stands, she is totally unemployable in any capacity at all (especially in her chosen profession) She is a public pariah and will probably have to spend the rest of her working life on State benefits (assuming that she can get them).
I can’t help feeling that this is an extremely high and unfair price for her to pay. SHE didn’t do all those terrible things to ‘Baby P’, the mother and her assortment of live in lovers did them.
It seems to me to be inequitable that somebody commits awful crimes, primarily because they are depraved and without any sense of decency or morality …… but we severely punish somebody else for failing to stop them.
In some ways it is like sacking the Commisioner of Metropolitan Police because his officers fail to prevent a murder.
Personally, I really hope that sharon Shoesmith wins her case and at least is allowed to keep her pension and receive some compensdation by way of payment in lieu of notice.
I dont think that the public outcry was solely as a result of her not stopping the baby P killers. I think it was also because she tried to justify her position with statistics saying that she had done nothing wrong and that her department had done nothing wrong.
I have to accept that her infamous appearance on the TV, when the whole issue came to public light, was in retrospect a serious blunder – but one that should have had these consequences??? …… i think not.
You have to remember that her appearance on TV etc was ‘authorised’ and it is said encouraged by the leaders of Haringey council. Indeed, she has said in Court that afterwards she was warmly congratulated by these same leaders, for defending the Council in general and her department in particular.
She states that she was even invited out for a ‘celebratory’ dinner.
It was only after Ed Balls got involved and started to publicly condemn her, that her former colleagues and bosses hung her out to dry.
Without doubt she was ‘scapegoated’ to protect others and has been now been forced to pay an enormous penalty.
I am really not sure where i sit on this, in some ways i do feel some sympathy for her as she has been condemned almost as badly as the killers themselves, but that said, if it was infact the buck stops with her then she has failed in her job ensuring the safety of this child, and that isnt like just not doing a stocktake one week she failed to do her job to protect this young boy, and as with any failure in a job should be reprimanded for it and the punishment should fit the crime… but we do need to remember, she is human mistakes were made but she isnt the brutal killer here.
So i really don’t know how i feel about her treatment, she is still alive and well even if she lost her job which is more than can be said for baby p, and in any job taking away the emotions you fail to do a job then u get sacked especially with something with such a serious outcome. A restaurant manager can be prosecuted for causing someone food poisoning and possible death and would get the sack if it was found that it was due to not doing their job properly so surely it is the same.To an extent I agree with you pol … and there again I don’t.
What you have stated is in essence the doctrine of vicarious liability (i.e. being responsible for the ‘sins’ of others for whom you are ultimately responsible).
To the extent that Sharon Shoesmith was responsible overall for the entire children’s services department, as its director, then it follows that she must be vicariously liable for its faults.
However, it must also be taken into account that the children’s services department has (and still has) several deputy directors responsible for the separate functions of the directorate – and they in turn each have a whole management structure beneath them.
As far as I am aware, none of these people was disciplined …. much less summarily and very publicly dismissed without even the most basic form of compensation – i.e. salary in lieu of notice etc .
Maybe they should have been – to be fair to everybody – but they wern’t. Only Sharon (in her mid 50’s) was both publicly humiliated and summarily dismissed after the briefest of Kangaroo court hearings possible.
I use the bus company analogy here.
If a bus driver working for a large group like First or Stagecoach knocks over and kills a pedestrian, should the chief executive of the company resign?
It depends on the circumstances – if it was generally known that the driver in question was unsafe and the management had been alerted but had done nothing, then there should be resignations or sackings. If the accident was an out-of-the-blue incident, even if it was the driver’s fault, then the buck probably stops with the driver.
Statistically, in a large organisation, bad things will happen. Given the size od these bus companies, it’s inevitable that one or two pedestrians will be killed by one of their buses from time to time. In a large social services organisation, it’s inevitable that a child is going to be abused by someone known to the authorites – particularly since the abuses will do all the can to conceal what’s going on.
OK, as I see it, she was in charge of a department. That department has now been investigated, and it was said to be criminally badly run. She ran it. The buck has to stop at someone when things are so badly wrong that children suffer and die (and its not just Baby P, lots of other children were endangered). The court case seems to imply that it was so badly run, that a case of this nature was almost inevitable.
She was in charge.
She takes the rap.
I see your point Minim … but to take your point a wee bit further.
In Haringey (as with most other Local Authorities) there is a children’s oversight & scrutiny committee. Also the ‘officers’ of the LA report to a ‘chief executive’ operationally and to an elected councillor politically.
The Councillor responsible for ‘children & young people’ is Councillor Reith
(Deputy Leader) – not a lot seems to have stuck to this person.The Chief Executive (to whom Sharon Shoesmith had a direct reporting line) is Dr. Ita O’Donovan – currently still in post.
These and others in the management structure of Haringey should surely also take their share of responsibility – but it seems that only Sharon Shooesmith was made the scapegoat for all the bad things that have happened to children in Haringey.
Perhaps they should all be removed from their positions, placed with other better run departments and made to go back to school.
There are bound to be many culpable people when a department is so badly run. But, management is top down. If the person at the top is ok, the people beneath them change their working practices until things end up being better. Of course, I am generalising… but
if she had been excellent at her job, then even if the others were rubbish, there would have been sufficient evidence that she had tried to change things …. and she would not have been in this situation.I see her downfall as one of many end products of a government and society which has failed and continues to fail, the failure to prioritise the safety and well being of ALL vulnerable people..
She is both victim and culprit, she is victim to the insanity which now governs this country. She is the culprit because of her willingness to be content with the structures put in place while refusing to push for appropriate resources.What a shame that the caring and hardworking people of these services cannot be rewarded with such a salary as this woman, perhaps then the workforce will be willing to give 110 %.
We can see the real guilty ones here, aided and abetted by a government which will not fund services to be able to cope with the heavy workload…..Sadly, these wretched victims have died in vain…..I curse all those responsible both directly and in-directly…I hope they burn…. :x
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