Baby P report was altered

Shoesmith: 'Baby P Report Was Altered'
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4:26pm UK, Thursday April 01, 2010
Mark White, home affairs correspondent
An official report relating to the Baby P cruelty case was rewritten because of political pressure to criticise children's chief Sharon Shoesmith, say her lawyers.


Sharon Shoesmith is taking action over her sacking after the Baby P case
Previously unreleased documents show there was no direct criticism of Ms Shoesmith in draft versions of the Ofsted inspectors' reports on her department - but there was in the final version, it is claimed.
Ms Shoesmith was later dismissed from her job as head of Haringey's Children's Services by Children's Secretary Ed Balls.

Baby Peter
The documents, relating to the inspections in the wake of baby Peter's death, were not put before the original High Court hearing into Ms Shoesmith's sacking but have now been released after a ruling by a judge.
The lawyers say the papers lend weight to their argument that the official report on Ms Shoesmith's department was made more critical because of public and political pressure.
Baby Peter Connelly died at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's brother in August 2007, despite being on the 'at risk' register.
In the final report, Ofsted states: "There is insufficient strategic leadership and management of safeguarding of children and young people from Haringey by elected members, senior officers and others."

Shoesmith's lawyers claim Ed Balls interfered with the Ofsted inspectors' report
The only criticisms in the draft report related to "managers", not to "strategic leadership" or "senior officials".
Ofsted claims that the changes simply reflected a developing drafting process.
Ms Shoesmith is taking action against Children's Secretary Ed Balls, Ofsted and Haringey Council over her sacking for failing to prevent the death.

I think its very clear that Ed Balls interfered in a major way with this case.

He needs the buck to stop with Shoesmith, and he used an awful lot of public money to ensure that it did. Hopefully it'll backfire becuse uttimately the blame for this case lies directly with Ed Balls, Shoesmith was implimenting government policy, and according to ofsted, she was doing a very good job of implimenting their crazy ideas.

I have no sympathy for Shoesmith, she just the type of greedy immoral scum who tend to do well in the public sector, but Ball's should be taking responsibility for the disaster that he engineered.

The consultant who wrote the original report is no better. Basically he was told that if he wanted paying, he'd need to make some changes, and of course he complied. He was also denied access to much of the case material too, and of course, like a frightened little pussycat he gave Ball's exactly what he paid to provide.

How do these bastards sleep at night ?