Unseemly Clinging…

The social services boss whose staff asked a foster family to take in a sex attacker who then raped their infant son and molested their daughter has refused to resign.

Hmm, sounds familiar. Where have I heard something similar?

Oh, right:

The refusal by director of social services Phil Evans to quit echoes the Baby P scandal last year, when Sharon Shoesmith, head of Haringey children's services, said she would not resign after her staff visited the 17-month-old 60 times before he died in August 2007 following months of horrific abuse.

And as I recall, she didn’t resign. She was determined to cling to her post.
She didn’t get the chance:

She was sacked from her £100,000-a-year post without compensation last December.

And given that her failure was to be in charge of a gang of incompetents who ‘merely’ didn’t act on the information they had, how much more culpable is someone who agreed a policy of placing foster families at risk?

Last night, Mr Evans, who is thought to earn at least £80,000, said he would not be considering his position despite admitting 'a serious error of judgment'.

You don’t need to – I’m pretty sure others are considering it for you!

Vale of Glamorgan council last night denied the decision not to tell the family of the teenager's alleged past was made in the interests of data protection.

They refused to say who took the decision to keep the foster family in the dark, before the completion of an NSPCC inquiry into the scandal, which could take two months.

In other words, they’d like to release the name once the fickle media has moved on to the latest scandal…

Welsh Assembly member Chris Franks said on Tuesday night: 'There has to be a complete reorganisation of the social services department.

'Mismanagement caused this horrific situation. We need the council to fully explain how this horrible episode was allowed to happen but they seem to be in denial at the moment.'

They’ll move to ‘bargaining’ pretty soon – then we’ll see a few bodies tossed over the side of the sled to the pursuing wolves.

Vale of Glamorgan councillor Neil Moore added: 'It's a devastating case that should never have happened. The history of this boy should have been known to social services. We need to find out why it happened, what procedures were in place and whether they were adhered to.'

If procedures really were ‘adhered to’, I think that’ll be an even greater scandal. Don’t you?

The parents of the two children are said to be considering suing the Tory council, which refuses to reveal whether anyone had been sacked over the incident.

Labour, Tory, makes no difference. Once in power, they cling to it like limpets, no matter what, and view the people who put them there as little more than irrelevancies…