If you want to lodge a complaint about someone putting up an oversized shed next door, but want to remain anonymous, planning authorities will typically tell you to get stuffed.
Why? Well, it's pretty obvious. Complaints where neither the authority being complained to, nor the person being complained about know who's behind the moaning inevitably lead to open gates for malice.
But if you want to remain anonymous to Social Services? No problem! They don't ask who you are, because, they say, the interests of the child are paramount over any concerns about anonymity. It sounds good, until you ask: is Social Services about family wellbeing, or just protecting children? It ought to be an equal concern.
This is the terrible place local authorities up and down the UK have taken us. Arse-kicked into covering their own backsides after high-profile failures on their part, they've now swung to the other extreme of making everyone guilty until they can prove otherwise.
It is, in no uncertain terms, a turning of centuries of legal safeguards against arbitrary punishment by the state on its head. Forget Magna Carta, because Social Services plebs think it's a kind of upmarket coffee.
And forget, too, the line that "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about." It's a lie. If someone that hates you cottons-on to the fact they can make as many complaints about your parenting abilities as they like without anyone asking who they are, chances are they will. Children are emotive. They grab the headlines. Especially when Social Services get things wrong.
Many will say that anonymity encourages reporting of bad parenting. Probably true. But then, it was an ethic used to terrible effect by the Stasi, too. Is that where the UK has come to? It is.
It's time Parliament put an end to entirely anonymous reporting of allegations against parents. If complainants want their details withheld, the Data Protection Act 1998 already allows that with no difficulty. If this practice were to end, then it would be easier for parents maliciously targeted by former partners, estranged spouses and neighbours with nothing else to do of a day, to tell Social Services who they think is responsible, and match that against what is often long-term harassing conduct by others, and often a matter of clear police record, too.
So long as Social Services redefine innocence by allowing completely anonymous accusations to be filed, parents - and their children - p and down the country remain at significant risk of further distress and harm. After all, send a shirty letter to a parent that someone, somewhere has moaned about them, and chances are they won't be taking it very lightly. It's an incredibly awful experience, sometimes pushing already stressed parents to the edge.
It's no good saying, on first complaint, that the "file is closed." If anonymity is OK, then Social Services can't tell whether the first anonymous complaint wasn't also made by the same person as the second. So, when they do get the second malicious complaint, they assume it's made independently of the first. They have to, because nobody asks who's moaning. This is just fundamentally wrong and ought never to have been allowed to become the default arse-covering, anti-rule of law system that operates daily in the UK.
It is a shame on the British spirit of justice, no less.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Anglesey Incompetence and a Judicial Condemnation
Anglesey Council has this week found itself in the remarkable and shameful position of being condemned by a family court judge for failing to follow basic procedures relating to a child's care.
The child's mother, as is widely reported elsewhere, suffered a temporary psychiatric illness. As a result, the child was properly put into care.
But when the mother recovered and returned home, the Council, in a move that can only be described as utterly incompetent, refused to give the child back for five months. During all that time, they had no Care Order of any description, and thus no lawful basis on which to prevent the child from being returned to its mother, who had a right to be so returned at any time.
Only on the award of an injunction - stopping the council from acting unlawfully - did it return the child as it ought to have done from the outset.
Judge Gareth Jones (Family Division, Mold) commented about his suspicion - which he stressed was only a suspicion - that the Council had failed to follow procedures in an attempt to reduce its costs, hoping that these suspicions would not be confirmed.
The Judge also commented on the obvious: that the Council had not asked itself even basic questions as to the legal grounds on which it was preventing the child returning home. So, rather than just not following procedures, the Council seemed to simply have not considered the basis on which their daily work is directed.
For anyone who thinks following procedures is an inconsequential technicality, it isn't. An Authority attempting or in fact acting outside the law has become a dangerous animal. On that basis, the rule of law fails to control the state, which continues to act according to its own, illegitimate rules.
Judge Jones clearly fired a very large shell across the bows of the once-more listing Anglesey ship when he made clear to them that they are not above the law, and subject to it. We might be grateful to Judge Jones for quite such a setting-straight of the manner in which the UK should and must operate.
Judge Jones commented that the Social Services Department appeared not to have been under the proper control of the Authority's Legal Department, which one might interpret as a thinly-veiled swipe at the latter department. He said he had formed similar suspicions in a previous case involving the same council.
The child's mother is now seeking damages from the Authority, which has accepted it failed to follow proper procedures but claims it did act in "good faith". Good faith is an oft-used term in local authority circles. But in this case, it is unsustainable precisely because acting in good faith necessarily meant acting according to the law that directs the manner in which councils operate, which Anglesey accepts it failed to do.
Judge Jones asked the council to demonstrate to the public it could again discharge its function without external help competently, adding that it had "failed abysmally" in the present case. The entire Council was put under special measures from Cardiff in 2011, with its Education Department separately receiving the same in 2012.
Few who keep an eye on local politics on Anglesey think that the same tired faces trying to stretch out to their gold-plated pensions can make the meaningful long-term cultural changes needed. Instead, just a couple of years on, we seem to be already on a steady return to the kind of unacceptable normality Anglesey exhibited since it became an Authority in the 1990s.
One can only hope the claim and eventual award to the child's mother reflects the exceptional seriousness of a Council acting outside the law, and the grave impacts this had on the family.
As to those within Social Services, the Legal Department and others who landed Anglesey taxpayers with another hefty legal bill, one can only hope against hope that a senior someone, somewhere, will get the chop - without a golden, 'keep your mouth shut' compromise agreement 'goodbye'. Not that anyone is holding their breath...
The child's mother, as is widely reported elsewhere, suffered a temporary psychiatric illness. As a result, the child was properly put into care.
But when the mother recovered and returned home, the Council, in a move that can only be described as utterly incompetent, refused to give the child back for five months. During all that time, they had no Care Order of any description, and thus no lawful basis on which to prevent the child from being returned to its mother, who had a right to be so returned at any time.
Only on the award of an injunction - stopping the council from acting unlawfully - did it return the child as it ought to have done from the outset.
Judge Gareth Jones (Family Division, Mold) commented about his suspicion - which he stressed was only a suspicion - that the Council had failed to follow procedures in an attempt to reduce its costs, hoping that these suspicions would not be confirmed.
 |
| Anglesey Council might do well to read this book... |
The Judge also commented on the obvious: that the Council had not asked itself even basic questions as to the legal grounds on which it was preventing the child returning home. So, rather than just not following procedures, the Council seemed to simply have not considered the basis on which their daily work is directed.
For anyone who thinks following procedures is an inconsequential technicality, it isn't. An Authority attempting or in fact acting outside the law has become a dangerous animal. On that basis, the rule of law fails to control the state, which continues to act according to its own, illegitimate rules.
Judge Jones clearly fired a very large shell across the bows of the once-more listing Anglesey ship when he made clear to them that they are not above the law, and subject to it. We might be grateful to Judge Jones for quite such a setting-straight of the manner in which the UK should and must operate.
Judge Jones commented that the Social Services Department appeared not to have been under the proper control of the Authority's Legal Department, which one might interpret as a thinly-veiled swipe at the latter department. He said he had formed similar suspicions in a previous case involving the same council.
The child's mother is now seeking damages from the Authority, which has accepted it failed to follow proper procedures but claims it did act in "good faith". Good faith is an oft-used term in local authority circles. But in this case, it is unsustainable precisely because acting in good faith necessarily meant acting according to the law that directs the manner in which councils operate, which Anglesey accepts it failed to do.
Judge Jones asked the council to demonstrate to the public it could again discharge its function without external help competently, adding that it had "failed abysmally" in the present case. The entire Council was put under special measures from Cardiff in 2011, with its Education Department separately receiving the same in 2012.
Few who keep an eye on local politics on Anglesey think that the same tired faces trying to stretch out to their gold-plated pensions can make the meaningful long-term cultural changes needed. Instead, just a couple of years on, we seem to be already on a steady return to the kind of unacceptable normality Anglesey exhibited since it became an Authority in the 1990s.
One can only hope the claim and eventual award to the child's mother reflects the exceptional seriousness of a Council acting outside the law, and the grave impacts this had on the family.
As to those within Social Services, the Legal Department and others who landed Anglesey taxpayers with another hefty legal bill, one can only hope against hope that a senior someone, somewhere, will get the chop - without a golden, 'keep your mouth shut' compromise agreement 'goodbye'. Not that anyone is holding their breath...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)