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This week's Have your say looks at the issue of service users being involved in the selection of senior social services managers.

What do you think of the idea of children or other service users being involved in the selection of senior managers? Do you have any experience of this idea working?

Have your say and share your experiences with us by clicking here Your responses will be posted here on March 7.

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Last week's Have your say asked where the buck should stop for the mishandling of the Victoria Climbie case.

Here are the responses we received:

"Senior managers should be made accountable and not be allowed to stand behind frontline workers."

Peter Bell

"Both front line workers and their managers should take responsibility as appropriate ie. if the field level social worker hasn't had the training or their files haven't been monitored then their line manager should take some of the responsibility. If the field level worker has been acting on their own, ignoring management advice, then they should take responsibility. If line managers monitor their workers' work, then should know what is going on."

Kate Kelly

"I am in no doubt that managers should accept responsibility - that is why they are managers!"

Anne Axford

"Today blame is all to easily passed from agency to agency. The tragedy of Victoria makes us in the social services feel we again have let a child down. The same old arguments are trotted out, a lack of resources is to blame. I believe that there is not a genuine understanding nor a commitment to resource social services to the degree that would be required if we are to be successful in being more accountable to the public. I would also ask the question of what Victoria's parents see as their role to protect their child. We cannot provide a safe service to the public that are British, how in God's name can we look after people who come from another country. I am not a racist far from it as I believe our diversity makes the world a more interesting place but lets get real."

Anonymous

"Under funding, under resourcing, lack of training and experience, high levels of stress and lack of good team and multi diciplinary working, all played a part in Victoria's death. However I think it would be difficult to blame any one individual for her death. However I think that all of us working within social care need to take heed of the tragic mistakes that were made, and the seriousness of the for-mentioned challenges to those of us who work in social care experience must now be taken seriously and be addressed by both local and central government. eg. How many SW offices can say they are fully staffed, with trained and experienced staff. There is a great deal of publicity given to the lack of Teachers, nurses etc, and encouragement to join these professions. However I do not see the same level of effort being put in to encouraging people to train in social work. Lisa Arthurworry certainly made some big mistakes as did the management in this case. But I ask one question. Why was a no level 3 worker allocated this case, and how big was her case load?"

Alison Ward

"It is my opinion that the mishandling of Victoria Climbie's case should be the responsibility of the senior managers and not frontline workers."

Dorothy Blissett

"1. I think there was a failure of inter-agency working. I believe that hospital staff had the clearest evidence of abuse and should not have allowed Victoria to go home.

2. Managers must take responsibility for not providing adequate supervision and monitoring. Social workers are not yet registered professionals with their own professional body and their own personal indemnity. Managers must take responsibility."

Jennifer Weinstein

"As a senior social worker in the child protection team, I am at a total loss to understand the rationale behind the post qualification. How on earth will this theory based exercise help prevent similar tragedies? Notwithstanding the time out that will need to be taken by social workers to complete these 6,000 word assignments. Who will be managing our child protection caseloads, whilst we complete this work? More to the point how on earth is the introduction of the PQ going to help prevent similar tragedies? It's not, as any social worker involved in child protection will tell you. It is a complete waste of money and resources, which can be far better spent by investing in direct services for children and their families. Will someone please tell the government?"

Tina Roncoli

"The responsibility for Victoria Climbie's death lies with her aunt and uncle who where the people who harmed her - no-one else. Agencies may have made mistakes in recognising what had gone on but these, I assume, were unintentional. If those 2 adults had not abused Victoria then she wouldn't have died - they must take the full blame for their actions."

Jane King

"Responsibility lies with those who denied the necessary resources. Individual professionals also hold a responsibility if they did not bring to the attention of managers the need for adequate resources. If they just did nothing they are as responsible as the senior managers who refused resources."

Brian Todd

"It is my view that elected members are placed there by the local electorate. To run local services and to ensure that matters run smoothly. It is tragic that Gurbux Singh, as senior Haringey employee, feels he had no responsibility for Victoria's death. If one spends 10 years putting into place procedures and systems only a fool would not bother to enquire how effective those new systems were and how they effected service delivery.

The same is true for Mary Richardson. To claim no knowledge of how bad things were is to claim that she was not up to the job. All those involved in Victoria's death have to take responsibility for their practice not just those at the frontline but middle and senior managers plus those elected members who chose to deprive the social services department of the finances to do the job effectively."

Paul Marron

"The question of who is accountable is the same as in all similar cases over the last 20 years. It is both managers and frontline workers. Although one could argue managers could be more accountable since should by now they should ensure sufficient supervisory resources are available especially in child protection cases. Training resources are available to cover all the aspects of this case including race and culture. I wonder why there is still a reluctance to admit a need for training.

The other major issue, which again has been part of many previous inquiries is the inability for agencies to want to communicate with one another as openly and as transparently as is necessary in these complex situations, where more than one agency and more than one professional group is involved."

Jacqui Griffiths