Following the conclusion of the trial of the carers of Baby P, The Sun led a major campaign against the social workers who worked with the child.

In an open letter to the newspaper, Community Care magazine’s Daniel Lombard asks its editor, Rebekah Wade, to rethink its agenda on social work issues, which could ultimately damage child protection efforts and children’s social work overall.

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Dear Ms Wade,

Your recent speech at the annual Cudlipp lecture gave a fascinating insight into the thinking behind The Sun‘s Baby P campaign.

You said that the campaign was a fight for justice and that it sought to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for his death. You went on to emphasise the importance of expressing public opinion.

This being the case, you will no doubt be interested to hear about some important omissions and biases in The Sun‘s reporting of this case.

The most important omission, given your crusade for accountability and responsibility, is The Sun‘s failure to mention the involvement of the General Social Care Council – social care’s equivalent of the General Medical Council.

The GSCC regulates the social care workforce in England. It has a duty to investigate concerns about social workers and can remove or suspend them from the register or place an admonishment on their registration. The GSCC has barred 28 social workers from practising in England since its conduct system was launched in 2006. Six social workers have been struck off in Scotland and seven in Wales.

The practitioners involved in the Baby P case are subject to the same scrutiny: the GSCC is currently investigating several of them. Your coverage has on numerous occasions referred to the General Medical Council but unfortunately made no mention of the General Social Care Council, giving the impression that there was no system for regulating the social care workforce.

Instead of telling your readers about the fair, balanced and evidence-based system in place to judge the social care practitioners involved, your coverage implied that The Sun‘s campaign was filling a void by demanding justice and accountability.

Meanwhile, you treated the other professions involved in the Baby P case quite differently. You almost entirely overlooked the police officers who twice arrested Baby P’s mother on suspicion of child cruelty and released her without charge. You were content for the GMC to pass judgement on the medical professionals.

Your efforts were focused squarely on social workers to the exclusion of others: your petition asserts that “Baby P was allowed to die despite 60 visits from Haringey social services”, when in fact he was seen 60 times by health and social work professionals.

Informed public opinion is undoubtedly important. Unfortunately, your coverage misinformed your readers. And in considering their views ahead of the facts and the informed opinions of the social workers who struggle with the realities at the frontline everyday, you have risked more children’s safety and maybe their lives.

In 27 consecutive editions following the conclusion of the trial of Baby P’s killers, you singled out Maria Ward, the social worker allocated to Baby P’s case, over and above the other professionals involved. She was named 55 times, in 31 articles, editorials, opinion columns and readers’ letters. Your editorials labelled her “lazy” and “useless”, while one story speculated on her mental health.

This pursuit was unnecessary – Ward will be investigated in the usual way – and it marred the whole profession. It alienated talented social workers nationwide. Since your campaign, evidence has already begun to emerge from our readers and elsewhere that some social workers have decided to stop practising and vacancy rates in London are approaching crisis levels. It is also likely to discourage bright students from entering the profession, undermining efforts to recruit much-needed social workers into children’s services.

Social work is one of the most high-pressure jobs and when there are not enough staff, team members are left to struggle with unreasonable workloads, leaving less time for each case. Ultimately, it is the children who will suffer.

By contrast, your newspaper holds police officers in high esteem – you sponsor the annual Police Bravery Awards and clearly strive to recognise the important and difficult job they do. It is about time that you acknowledge some of the success stories of England’s 90,000 social workers – described by children’s secretary Ed Balls as the country’s “unsung heroes”.

Operating on modest salaries, many of them dedicate their entire careers to supporting Britain’s most problematic communities without thanks or praise. Child protection cases are among the most complex and challenging investigations any public servants undertake, yet social workers successfully intervene and secure the well-being of countless children at risk of abuse every year.

In the case of Baby P there were clearly failings. But as Lord Laming said in his report of the Climbié inquiry, the people who should be held personally accountable for the effectiveness of child protection services are managers and leaders of relevant authorities, because they are responsible for ensuring services are adequately financed and staffed, and that staff are properly trained and supported.

A second serious case review examining the actions of all the agencies involved with Baby P is under way, and GSCC officials are still investigating the conduct of the social workers in question.

On behalf of them, and the profession as a whole, I ask you to leave professional judgement on the careers of frontline workers to the experts and regulators. The appointment of your agony aunt, Deidre Sanders, to the national social work taskforce presents an unexpected opportunity for your newspaper to make amends. Future Baby P cases would be more likely avoided if The Sun‘s considerable influence was instead used to demand better staffing, resources, pay and training to create a world class frontline social care workforce in the UK.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Lombard, reporter, Community Care, and the editorial team

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Reactions: Twitter, blogs

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   New blog post: Call on The Sun to support social workers http://tinyurl.com/dxsh99

2. Liberal Conspiracy

   New blog post: Call on The Sun to support social workers http://tinyurl.com/dxsh99

   [Original tweet]

3. sim89

   Hello. Liberal Conspiracy has posted on our Sun social work campaign http://is.gd/jFEZ almost 2,300 signs btw

   [Original tweet]

4. links for 2009-02-16 « Embololalia

   [...] Call on The Sun to support social workers (tags: socialservices tabloids uk babyp scapegoats) [...]

5. Mental Nurse · Social Workers invite the Sun outside for a fight

   [...] tip to Liberal Conspiracy for pointing out an open letter to the editor of the Sun from the editor of Community Care magazine [...]

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