Children’s worker banned for safeguarding failures

A social worker who repeatedly failed to safeguard vulnerable children has been removed from the register.

John Maude’s failings left many vulnerable service users unprotected when he worked at Rotherham Council, a conduct committee of the General Social Care Council found.

As allocated social worker for three children while at the Yorkshire authority between 2005 and 2009, the committee found Maude had:

● Failed to respond to allegations of domestic violence against the father.

● Failed to follow the advice of other professionals.

● Left the three children in a “highly dangerous situation”, and the youngest child without a protection plan.

● Allowed the father to have unsupervised contact with his three children, leaving them at “an unacceptably high risk of harm”.

Maude claimed that he had sought legal advice regarding the youngest child, but the committee was told there was no record of this.

The committee rejected the social worker’s defence and found he had committed serious misconduct over a considerable period, breaching a number of the codes of practice for social workers. These included neglecting the best interests of service users, putting service users at unnecessary risk, failing to meet standards of practice and failing to keep clear and accurate records.

What do you think? Join the debate on CareSpace

Keep up to date with the latest developments in social care. Sign up to our daily and weekly emails

Related articles

GSCC removes social worker for 28 counts of misconduct

Misconduct case dropped due to lack of evidence