Sue White, chair of the Association of Professors of Social Work, comments on Community Care's story, "GSCC accuses Cafcass over 'dishonest spin' in conduct case":
"Whilst I have no details of the specifics apart from those I have read in the CC article, it is clear that this case is an example of what we need to fix, all of us together, managers, practitioners, journalists and academics.
"One cannot have safe practices whilst there are gagging clauses - that organisations want to control information flow in such a high blame environment is however completely understandable and the media need to take their fair share of responsibility (but not blame). If we look to industries with a good safety record (dangers of crude comparisons accepted, we are not an airline, but many of the principles do transfer) confidential reporting of problems is absolutely vital.
"We need a cultural shift in what are complex human services so we can start to seek intelligent remedies. It can be done, but disciplining employees for voicing opinions - if this indeed what happened and, as I say, I don't know - is not the way to go."
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