Disgraceful

Sharon Shoesmith has been dismissed from Haringey Council with immediate effect. The decision was taken today by a panel of councilors. Ms Shoesmith will not be returning to work in Haringey. She will not receive any compensation package. She will not receive any payment in lieu of notice - Haringey Council statement.

There seems to have been no end to which Haringey Council would not have gone to buff up the tarnished image of its most incompetent operatives. £19 000 of public money - that could have been used to initiate five separate care proceedings in order to protect children at risk was instead last year wasted on media training to help enhance the public image of those who demonstrably failed children. The beneficiaries of the generosity of the officials of Haringey Council were Sharon Shoesmith and other senior officials involved in the management shambles that allowed three torture killers prolonged and unlimited access to Baby P. All a spokesperson for Hopeless Haringey could say was ‘it is reasonable for any employer to ensure that staff in the full glare of the media spotlight are given some training to help them deal with this sort of unusual situation.’

Its about as much as we can expect from a council that only last week saw its leader and another key official, Liz Santry, resign in the wake of an ‘independent report’ into its failings in the area of child protection. Santry had also received media training. People who in the words of British Family Secretary Ed Balls were ‘not fit for Office’ were having considerable amounts of the British taxpayers money spent on keeping them firmly in position.

The Liberal Democrat councilor David Winskill who was responsible for forcing the council into releasing the figures hit the nail on the head when he said that the money had been spent so that Haringey Council could avoid being brought to book. His party colleague the Liberal Democratic MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, Lynne Featherstone, was blunter: ‘it is absolutely outrageous that this money has been wasted on spin doctors. Every single penny of this cash would have been better spent on improving our children’s service.’ As so often there is a pungent odor emitted which is best labeled cover up.

The gross absurdity of Hopeless Haringey's thinking has been accentuated in that it thought that what this case needed was a spin doctor when the drastic failings of a medical doctor had wrought such fatal consequences. Where treatment fails, apparently, cover it up with a little spin, or £19, 000 worth.

1 comment:

  1. Itsjustmacker,

    and their expensive attempts at spin

    ReplyDelete