Events | 2009.10.07
Shoesmith emails reveal extent of storm
Minister denies that he sacked children\'s services chief to win party advantage after tabloid hysteria and row in Commons
No one in the upper echelons of Haringey council, or the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), including Ed Balls and Sharon Shoesmith, had any inkling of the scale of the media and political storm that was to engulf them following the conviction of Baby Peter\'s killers on 11 November 2008.
They had meticulously planned a strategy to manage the expected high level of press interest. But within days the controversy would spiral out of their control, eventually leaving Shoesmith financially ruined and her career in tatters, and Balls facing allegations in court yesterday that he had ruthlessly axed a senior public servant to gain political advantage.
Senior civil servants and council officers had been nervous about the Baby P case: it carried echoes of the Victoria Climbié tragedy that had scarred Haringey\'s child protection services seven years previously.
But, according to Shoesmith\'s lawyers, documents produced at the high court yesterday suggest they were confident they could handle it.
Haringey\'s independent children\'s safeguarding board, chaired by Shoesmith, had carried out a serious case review into the death of Baby P, which had been seen by senior officials in Balls\'s department.
It said that – apart from a missed opportunity by an NHS paediatrician – there was nothing officials could have reasonably done to prevent the death of Peter, a toddler on the council\'s child protection register who died in appalling circumstances in August 2007 at the hands of his mother, Tracey Connelly, her lover, Steven Barker, and their lodger, Jason Owen.
Their handling of the case, however, came under intense scrutiny after Shoesmith, Haringey\'s £130,000-a-year director of children\'s services, held a press conference on 11 November to discuss the review findings. Shoesmith, rattled by questioning from the media, was attacked for her apparent defensiveness and supposed lack of contrition. She later called the conference "a disaster". Even then, according to evidence presented to the high court yesterday by Shoesmith\'s legal team, she was supported by colleagues in the council and experts in the field.
Ita O\'Donovan, Haringey\'s chief executive, called Shoesmith her "heroine" and took her director of children\'s services out for dinner that evening, "to thank her for what she had done".
Shoesmith was emailed that night by Sir Paul Ennals, the respected chief executive of the National Children\'s Bureau charity, who congratulated her on her performance. "Well done, Sharon, on how you have been handling the media attention over this case," it said. "Seriously tricky stuff, but you have been getting the tone just right."
The same evening, an internal email sent by Jeanette Pugh, the DCSF director of safeguarding, was equally sanguine - although nervous about the press conference performance. "I have no reason to doubt her [Shoesmith\'s] competence or sincerity – and she has been very open and co-operative with me – but her stance today ... makes things trickier."
Another email sent by Pugh to colleagues that evening , which Shoesmith\'s lawyers presented in evidence to the court yesterday, suggests she was relatively relaxed at how things were going: "So far I think the government has handled this as well as we could and the government is reasonably well positioned."
The following day matters became drastically more urgent. The Sun ran with the front-page headline "Blood on their hands" and called for sackings in Haringey. David Cameron rounded on Gordon Brown at prime minister\'s question time, demanding to know why no one had been sacked over Haringey\'s failure to protect Baby Peter.
Papers submitted to the court reveal that after PMQs senior DCSF officials went into crisis mode. The Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, phoned Shoesmith to warn her that "something dreadful" had happened in the House of Commons. Within an hour of PMQs finishing, the DCSF permanent secretary, David Bell, telephoned O\'Donovan to demand Shoesmith\'s suspension. Haringey refused. DCSF press officers sent an email to their counterparts in Haringey informing them that the media would henceforth be handled from Whitehall.
Balls ordered Ofsted that afternoon to undertake a rapid investigation of Haringey\'s child protection services, reporting by 1 December. Ofsted would normally take five months to complete this kind of report, known as a joint area review (JAR), but on this occasion it would have just 19 days to deliver its findings to Balls. And crucially, say her lawyers, Shoesmith would never be given the opportunity to comment on its findings before publication – in breach of JAR protocols.
Meanwhile, the Sun and other tabloids kept up their criticism of Shoesmith. A petition calling for her removal was presented to No 10 by the Sun on 26 November with more than one million signatures. Photographers camped outside her home and followed her wherever she went.
"I\'m just living with humiliation on a daily basis," she said in evidence to her dismissal appeal panel hearing. The pressure on Shoesmith became increasingly intense: she received death threats, and at one stage considered taking her own life. By 19 November Haringey\'s leadership were under increasing pressure to act. According to the court papers submitted yesterday, council leader George Meehan told Shoesmith he was convinced the Ofsted report would be negative and he was prepared to resign, along with the lead councillor on children\'s services, Liz Santry. He asked Shoesmith to resign too, but she refused, on the grounds that she had not seen the report. A group of Haringey headteachers wrote to the Times to protest against her scapegoating.
Balls was briefed on the critical investigation report on the morning of 1 December by Ofsted\'s head, Christine Gilbert. A group of Haringey officials – but none from children\'s services – were given an hour to read and comment on the report. "By this stage," said Shoesmith\'s lawyers in their submission to the court, "the council had clearly determined to wave the white flag and sacrifice the claimant [Shoesmith]".
Later that morning Balls held a televised press conference to announce that on the basis of Ofsted\'s "devastating" report he was using special powers to remove Shoesmith from office. She claims she learned of her dismissal from the TV; the first time she saw the report that had been used to topple her was when she downloaded it from the Ofsted website that evening.
On 8 December Haringey formally sacked Shoesmith.
The children\'s secretary is defending himself from claims that he acted to win party political points, insisting that he acted fairly. The submissions before Mr Justice Foskett assert that parliament had given the secretary of state broad powers to intervene when he judged local child protection arrangements inadequate. In the case of Baby P, he had not been improperly motivated by party politics or attempting to assuage vociferous elements of the media.
The crucial emails
Legal documents submitted to the high court yesterday by lawyers for Sharon Shoesmith reveal email exchanges that took place in November 2008, as the story about the death of Baby P became a national talking point – and criticism of her intensified. To begin with, Shoesmith appeared to retain the support of colleagues in Haringey council and professionals in the field. But that changed suddenly, claim Shoesmith\'s legal team, because of the pressure being brought to bear by ministers.
11 November 2008 Sir Paul Ennals, chief executive of the National Children\'s Bureau charity, wrote to Sharon Shoesmith
"Well done, Sharon, on how you have been handling the media attention over this case. Seriously tricky stuff, but you have been getting the tone just right"
The email was written after a press conference in which Shoesmith was condemned by some sections of the media for apparently failing to say sorry.
Senior civil servants were also initially relaxed about the press furore. Also on 11 November, Jeanette Pugh, director of the safeguarding group at the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), sent an email to colleagues, which said:
\'"So far I think the government handled this as well as we could and the government is reasonably well positioned"
12 November 2008 David Cameron harangued Gordon Brown over Baby P\'s death at prime minister\'s questions. Shoesmith\'s senior Haringey colleagues remained supportive after and resisted her suspension.
13 November 2008 Councillor Claire Kober, then chief whip for Haringey Labour group, wrote a private email to Shoesmith
"The last few days have been dreadful for everyone. I wanted to say I have the utmost respect for you as a public servant, and while there are service improvements that we must deliver, I have every confidence that you are the individual to get us where we need to be"
But the mood in government, say Shoesmith\'s team, had changed. An email sent from the DCSF to Haringey press office within an hour of PMQs finishing said: "There was a fierce exchange at PMQs re baby P. Story is being ramped up and we\'re being asked to \'take over\' Haringey."
19 November 2008 Council leader George Meehan told Shoesmith that he would be resigning, and would like her to do so too. She refused. He is alleged to have told her
"I will never sack you, Sharon, not after everything you have done for Haringey"
Shoesmith\'s legal team allege that Ed Balls, the schools secretary, intended to use an Ofsted report into the death of Baby P as ammunition to remove her. They produced an internal email from Balls\'s department, dated November 16, which they say shows that ministers had no intention of allowing her reasonable time to comment on the report before it was published
16 November 2008 Internal email, Department for Children, Schools and Families
"[What] was paramount was for the LA [local authority, in this case Haringey] not to see it [the critical Ofsted report] before [Ed] Balls does..."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/07/baby-p-sharon-shoesmith-emails
