Recently in legal Category

 by Allan Norman

One of the first decisions of the new UK Supreme Court L, R (on the application of) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3 (29 October 2009) will offer some welcome reprieve to social care workers and would-be social care workers who have discovered the devastating effects of "information disclosed at the Chief Police Officer's discretion" - on an enhanced CRB. There is now a way of fighting back.

The problem

The problem - because there most certainly is one - can be summarised as follows:

• The use of enhanced CRBs is growing dramatically - nearly 275,000 were issued in 2008-09
• The Police, if in doubt about the relevance of information, are likely to include it - saying, correctly, that it is for the organisation to whom it is disclosed to make decisions about suitability, not them
• Employers and agencies are likely to err on the side of caution when an enhanced CRB raises concerns
• All this has a devastating effect on the 10% or so of applicants in respect of whom enhanced information is disclosed.
  

 by Allan Norman

When we represented a junior social worker who exposed the corrupt practices of her team manager, we were representing someone whose decision to speak out was not easy. The person she felt she had to expose had decades of experience as a social work practitioner; she was newly qualified. The person she felt she had to expose was in management, as were those who would consider any grievance or disciplinary matters, but she was not.

And all she was going on was her conviction that her very experienced team manager shouldn't be telling her it was acceptable to lie to the court. The emergence of her manager's criminal conviction came later. The fabrication of evidence came later still in the case. Could she feel confident that her professional career would survive intact? No.

 by Allan Norman

Tuesday seems to have been the day for the courts to decide the public interest in naming people outweighs that in protecting their anonymity. Just down the corridor from where Lynda Barnes was being heard, judgement was being given in the case of The Author of A Blog v Times Newspapers Ltd [2009] EWHC 1358 (QB) (16 June 2009).

In a nutshell, blogging is a public and not a private activity, so there is no right to anonymity.

 by Allan Norman

My colleague Faith Ryan recently had the privilege of representing the junior 'Social Worker C' whose exposure of the failings of her team manager dramatically changed the course of the Care Order application in the case of Bath & North East Somerset Council v A Mother & Ors [2008] EWHC B10 (Fam) (22 December 2008) published today.

It was her revelation that her team manager had suggested lying to the court if necessary that led to further revelations including core assessments that hadn't been disclosed to the court, and later manufactured evidence of telephone calls that never took place. It led the High Court to conclude that our client's allegations against her team manager, despite "amounting as they do to allegations of perjury, attempting to pervert the course of justice and contempt... are proved on the balance of probabilities" (paras 89-90)

It has been a guiding principle of my private and professional lives that ends do not justify means. Ever. Period.

by Allan Norman

The last time registered social worker Lynda Barnes featured in Community Care, it was her appeal against a decision of the then Avon County Council to sack her following her conviction for Conspiracy to Murder that was being covered.

Out of the media spotlight, she returned to statutory social work in 2005 following local government reorganisation in the area, and became a team manager in a child protection team.

This time it is her social work methods that come under particular scrutiny, as the Court of Appeal yesterday rejected her human rights argument against publication of her name in the judgement of the High Court in the case of Bath & North East Somerset Council v A Mother & Ors [2008] EWHC B10 (Fam) (22 December 2008).

by Michael Fitzpatrick GP

The furore over the death of baby Peter in Haringey has led to doctors and social workers involved in child protection being urged to be more critical and invasive in their assessments. According to the Lancet our child protection system is "a disastrous mess". Meanwhile, the British Medical Association has produced a 62-page child protection toolkit, exhorting doctors to "take immediate action when dealing with children at risk".

 by Allan Norman

Regulars will know I've followed developments relating to the death in custody of Adam Rickwood. The latest, widely publicised, development is the decision of the high court to order a new inquest into Adam's death, see Pounder, R (on the application of) v HM Coroner for the North & South Districts of Durham & Darlington & Ors [2009] EWHC 76 (Admin) (22 January 2009).

Will social work be in the firing line? I think and hope not.

 by Allan Norman

Yesterday, the House of Lords gave its long awaited judgement in Wright & Ors,R (On the application of) v Secretary of State for Health & Anor [2009] UKHL 3 (21 January 2009). I previously commented on the Court of Appeal's judgement under the heading GSCC delays blight careers - and may breach human rights.

Now, the House of Lords has gone further than the Court of Appeal. In its effect on social care workers faced with provisional POVA/POCA listing, the Article 8 (private life) right of the social care worker is engaged, and not only the right to a fair hearing; it is not possible for the court to remedy the defect (as the Court of Appeal tried to do); the House of Lords accordingly declared the scheme for provisional listing incompatible with the human rights of social care workers.

 by Allan Norman

According to my dictionary, a "threat" is the "act of declaring the intention to inflict pain, punishment etc".

I was accompanying a service user client and telling their social worker that I intended to seek judicial review of their so-called assessment, when to my surprise, the social worker accused me of threatening behaviour. I mused that I didn't understand how peaceably explaining that I would use the correct forum to obtain a legal and just outcome for my service user client could amount to a threat. 

 by Allan Norman

My colleague Yasmeen Qazi - a social worker and solicitor like myself - has recently been able to positively clarify rights to social services when a potential service user's presence here is both settled and stable on the one hand, but illegal on the other.

The case is R (on the application of C) v Birmingham City Council [2008] All ER (D) 171 (Nov). The brief facts are that the issue was whether the family could access support from the statutory social services authority in the form of accommodation and subsistence support under the Children Act 1989. The family comprised a mother who was an overstayer and therefore illegally present, an eldest child in respect of whom an application had been made for settlement under the "seven year concession", and three further British children born between 2004 and 2006.