[Pyramid*]

Originally Posted by bobnot

Well seeing as i named angus in my post and also referred to the thread title as my bugbear i would of thought it obvious that i was indeed talking about angus maybe you need to re-read my post.

I wasnt actually aware that the original report was from the daily fail but does that suprise me? well i will leave that up to you to decide.
Short of social services providing a care worker to sit and observe a baby and its parents 24 hours a day what do you suggest?

They have to make a decision in the very limited time they have do you think you could get it right 100% of the time? you only hear about the tiny percentage of the time they get it wrong.(so in my book they must be doing a pretty great job)

If you have a better system that is completely 100% foolproof then please enlighten society with it because social services would love to know about it

I look forward to hearing all about it.

edit: please pyramid dont take that as personal criticism (as i really like your posts) but complaints should come with constructive alternatives otherwise they are just noise.

I was under the impression that Angus was female - which is the reason I asked! I also asked because they were not the only person to have the same opinion - I happen to share it - and it could also have been directed at me - given that I also started a thread that was merged. 2 fairly understandable reasons for my asking which 'man' you were referring to.

What do I suggest? I suggest that Social Services do what they are specially trained to do, are paid to do: and that is their job. If anyone else failed to such a degree in their paid employment would be booted out on their arses - bearing in mind the amount of failings that surrounded this case. 17 alerts from the public. Baby handed back without any signs of the unfit mother mending her ways. Being aware that baby was losing weight, being aware of the unfit mother's continuing problems - yet none of this, none of the 17 public alerts were enough to flag up,"Hey..we'd better keep a close eye on this one....". How much prompting do they need? How many times do the public have to express their concern (over a child that had already been taken off the mother previously due to her inability to look after him).

Regardless of which job role is being discussed: a great many don't mean that failing will result in the loss of a life -and in the most horrific ways (as in this particular case). - so it's all the more important that social services get it right. Get it wrong is far higher a price to pay. As I say, for all of the reasons that I meantioned above (which I also mentioned in my earlier post) - that's why I don't feel this division of SS should be beyond critisism or beyond reproach.

How many 'red flags', how many alerts, warnings, triggers would they have needed before they decided to go check on things. If ever there was the case for making an 'on the spot' decision to protect this child, it appears they had plenty of opportunity but still failed to do that.

As I say, the price of the them getting it wrong is death - and as this case shows: not only did they get it wrong - they had so many valid reasons for acting - yet STILL failed to do so.

It seems as though Soc Serv haven't really moved on or learned that much from the horrible suffering and neglectful death of Baby P.