EXCLUSIVE Baby P and Daniel Pelka bosses to be star speakers at £360 a head conference
BRITAIN’S two most controversial ex-children’s services directors are to be the main speakers at a £360 per head conference about the Baby P scandal in December.
By: Ted Jeory
VICTIMS: Deaths of Baby Peter Connelly and Daniel Pelka triggered major questions for social workers [PA/ENTERPRISE NEWS]
Sharon Shoesmith and Colin Green are to appear on the same platform at the London conference entitled, ‘The Baby P legacy five years on: What have we learnt?’
Ms Shoesmith was the director of children’s services at Haringey Council in north London during the time Baby Peter Connelly was being beaten and abused by his mother and two other men.
He died of multiple broken bones and other injuries in August 2007.
Colin Green was the child protection boss at Coventry City Council when four-year-old Daniel Pelka was murdered by his mother and stepfather in March last year.
He retired from Coventry City Council two months ago.
Both faced heavy criticism following serious case review investigations into the two deaths.
Neither is being paid to speak at the event, which includes leading academics, other child protection experts and journalists.
CRITICISED: Coventry boss Colin Green and Haringey's Sharon Shoesmith 'unfairly treated', allies say [PA/ENTERPRISE NEWS]
Ms Shoesmith was removed from her £133,000 a year post by then Education Secretary Ed Balls and sacked by the council in December 2008.
Today, she is understood to have reached a large compensation settlement with the council and central Government over her dismissal, which was considered by a court as unfair.
Express Online understands the settlement figure is “nowhere near” the £600,000 reported by the BBC’s Newsnight programme last night.
Both Ms Shoesmith and Mr Green will speak at the Community Care Conference in central London on December 12.
Delegates are being asked to pay between £248 and £358 to attend.
The conference is being organised by Reed Business Information, which said: “It is not our policy to pay speakers for their involvement at our events.”
Ms Shoesmith is due to give a 40-minute talk about “examining the nature of public accountability” and “tackling the continued neglect of child homicide”.
I’m not sure they are people who can teach us anythingMP John Hemming
Mr Green, who was forced after public pressure to stand down from a new job with the Tower Hamlets Local Safeguarding Board in east London last month, has been allocated a 15-minute slot.
He will “assess how the media continues to influence perceptions of child protection services in the wake of the Daniel Pelka experience”.
He was invited to attend before a serious case review earlier this year published criticisms of his department’s work at Coventry City Council.
The conference will be chaired by Kingston University’s respected social care expert, Professor Ray Jones.
He argued both former bosses had valuable insights to share and added it was time to move away from the “blame culture” that he says is deterring high quality candidates from taking up crucial and challenging leadership positions in councils.
He said: “Colin Green was invited because he has written about the child protection system today and some of the trends and pressures within it.
“Sharon Shoesmith was invited because it’s about how the Baby P story was shaped, how it was told and what impact it’s had on individuals and the child protection since.
“Colin Green still has useful things to say. He has an extensive background in child protection and his writings over the past two years have said something about how the system is getting increasingly difficult to lead and manage well.
“I think the £600,000 has been created out of the air and it doesn’t bear any relevance to what she actually got.
“If some terrible tragedy happens, the blame culture means someone has to be blamed for it and they’ve got to lose their jobs and stopped from ever working again with children.
“That’s not helping to make our child protection system safer because people are now deterred from staying and working within it.
“Sharon Shoesmith had considerable experience working with children and before it flared up as a big media issue, Ofsted praised her leadership in Haringey.
“Head teachers praised her leadership after she went as well.
“We’ve got a continuing hue and cry scapegoating one person and that’s making it difficult to get people working in child protection because they know as soon as something terrible happens, they could be the focus of the next campaign.
“There’s no question of her working in the public sector again.
“She’s not been employable for five years, she’s not had an income for five years and that’s likely to be the case for the rest of her life.”
However, Lib Dem MP John Hemming, a longstanding critic of the local government child protection system, said: “I’m not sure they are people who can teach us anything to be honest.
“The system had been going badly wrong for some time–and they were running it.”
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Ms Shoesmith’s lawyers argued she was the victim of “a flagrant breach of natural justice” fuelled by a media witch-hunt.
Baby Peter died in Tottenham, north London, on August 3 2007 at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her lover Steven Barker and their lodger Jason Owen.
He had suffered more than 50 injuries despite being on the at-risk register and receiving 60 visits from social workers, police and health professionals over the final eight months of his life.
A series of reviews identified missed opportunities when officials could have saved his life if they had acted properly on the warning signs in front of them.
Daniel Pelka was starved by Magdelena Luczak, 27, and Mariusz Krezolek, 34.
Daniel Pelka was starved by Magdelena Luczak, 27, and Mariusz Krezolek, 34.
He had been kept locked in a box room at home, fed salt, and starved to the point where he stole food from other pupils' lunchboxes.
The serious case review found nobody had ever spoken to Daniel independently about his home life nor acted decisively to intervene in his care.
Luczak and Krezolek were jailed for a minimum of 30 years each after being found guilty of the child's murder in a trial at Birmingham Crown Court in July.
Luczak and Krezolek were jailed for a minimum of 30 years each after being found guilty of the child's murder in a trial at Birmingham Crown Court in July.
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