Points in practice

Abstract

There are no winners: “Social workers sent youth to brutal death.” “Social workers kept watch on freed killer.” These two headlines appeared within a few days of each other in the Daily Telegraph. The first heading is not, perhaps, unexpected and most battered social workers will have felt a twinge of sympathy for their East Sussex colleagues, again in the firing line. The second heading, however, appeared over this opening sentence: “Social service workers resorted to a ‘form of spying' to keep an eye on John Auckland when he was freed from jail, it was disclosed yesterday.” This novel technique apparently “led to them discovering that Auckland had killed two of his own baby daughters and had remarried on leaving jail in November.” Some social workers, of course, might even have remembered the name LL Auckland.” But for those who had not it appears that there is some foolproof system of discovering a person's past record. Should this not be more generally known? One would have assumed that the Daily Telegraph would be pleased to report that the possibility of bureaucratic slipups could now be further reduced. Yet there is a distinct air of disapproval and distaste at the notion of a social worker espionage network in the journalist’s report.