Ms Rachel Meade V Westminster CC & Social Work England Employment Tribunal Hearing

[ickky]

The hearing starts on 1st December 10am at London Central.

If you want to observe please send your email request to

[email protected]

The email header should read

PUBLIC ACCESS REQUEST Case NO: 2200179/2022 Date 01/12/2022 London Central Ms R Meade - Westminster CC & Social Work England

I just asked for the link and pin and I also included my name & address, but I'm not sure if that is necessary.

I believe as ever that veg still needs sowing.

Imagine 'regulating' a profession (essentially, safeguarding) that you don't understand, using a contested socio-political ideology as your measure?

Fucking nuts.

Also looks like the Dep Head of WCC (Bernie Flaherty Deputy Chief Executive WCC) has withheld evidence of the extent of their involvement

Yes, that’s how I’m understanding it too. What a mess.

After so many of these I'm surprised that I'm still surprised at how badly these investigations are carried out!

That’s true, but what this process surely shows is how inefficient it is to attempt to regulate a profession you don’t actually understand.

It's important to have lay members in the regulatory process. Most professions deal with members of the public at some point and lay members bring a different perspective from outside of the profession. Lay members often come with expertise in other areas of life and so provide diversity of experience. They also often have significant regulatory experience that professional members don't have.

Also the issues in this case are not unique to SW are they? Freedom of speech and expression, conflict of rights between two protected characteristics, safeguarding etc. Nothing is unique to SW.

The safeguarding perspective is different for social work due to statutory responsibilities. Also due to being the agency that takes cases into court for care proceedings which other professionals don't do

You would think all these institutions would have learnt by now. I guess it's not their fault really. They have all been Stonewalled.

It reminded me of this Bill Burr Sketch. Substitute Church will Stonewall.

with

Exactly. This case is just another example of a societal wide influence of gender ideology which has embedded into our organisations and institutions. Across the board people have been convinced that it is bigotry to state biological facts. It's hard to say how many of these cases will be required before it starts to sink in that you cannot discriminate against people who don't believe men can be women. If RM wins this case I think the message will spread across all regulators so hopefully this case will have a big impact if RM is successful.

The other suspensions really weaken their case IMO. It reeks of ideology over evidence and fact - anyone who doesn't go along with the ideology blindly is punished.

I've been the equivalent of a 'lay regulator' and we had extensive - and I mean extensive - safeguarding training. You know, the old fashioned kind - Laming, Every Child Matters, Children Act. I do not recognise the claptrap that BR was allowed to come out with on behalf of SWE.

It's would appear that the training has been corrupted.

It’s stunning. If this case is publicised, I wish WCC luck in recruitment and retention of social workers.

One of the earlier tweets showed the institutional capture when BF said "we have an extra responsibility because these people are very very (two verys??? ) vulnerable, especially so"

So they weren't starting from a position of being impartial.

Yes, that jumped out to me too, Boiled.

I'm surprised it too so long to fill mark that box on my bingo card.

It's making me feel very tin foil hat adjacent about the intentions of people pushing this ideology (to be clear, not trans people themselves). It feels to me like a deliberate concerted effort to weaken safeguarding - to make it impossible for people to speak up.

We are constantly told 'safeguarding should be for everyone' in training. It's not for everyone if you risk this level of harm / loss of livelihood for speaking the truth as you see it, even in your own time.

It's really frightening and disappointing but after scandals like Rotherham I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised.

I hat to break it to you, but it is an actual conspiracy. Read the Dentons document.

ffs hate. <must check my posts>

This is nuts. They disciplined Rachel because she did a transphobia, but they have no policy and around this and can't define it.

@dimorphism

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-dentons-document

Catabogus · 10/07/2023 18:07

- - This is the referenced Aedan Wolton, a transman and social worker at Sport England, who put in the complaint - -

I also saw this. However, I can’t find any reference online to Jack Aitken, the investigator who - it seems to have emerged later - knew Aedan Wolton.

Crikey, I hope that's been given to the tribunal, it seems like a most egregious case of conflict of interest. The complainant and the investigator being friends looks very bad indeed; he should have advised the complainant to seek another investigator.

(Sorry, I haven't kept up with the Tribunal Tweets).

I see this morning WCC are, like SWE defining transphobia as anything that might offend a trans person.

Imagine being told SW's can't talk about male violence as it might offend some men.

we have an extra responsibility because these people are very very vulnerable, especially so

I'm obviously especially dim today, because I'm struggling to see what 'these people ' (presumably trans people) are so extra specially vulnerable to. To being upset? To not liking stuff? Social workers have to tread on eggshells and not say anything a trans person might not like because - what? They'll be sad? They'll be cross? They'll harm themselves if we don't all play along with their identity?

It's surprising to me (except of course, it isn't) that the regulatory body for social workers, a group of professionals charged with keeping people safe and working often with clients who don't want or don't perceive that they need SW input, thinks there is a group who need extra careful treatment and mustn't be upset. SWs deal day in day out with people who don't agree with them, don't want their involvement, and who either deliberately or not may be causing others to be unsafe. And their regulator thinks that there is a group of people who must be kept from any distress and who SWs must not upset. Christ alive.

Wasn't Lisa Muggeridge a social worker too? Also hounded and threatened for her stance on the issue?

Yes I’m also concerned by this. Looking through the documents available on Tribunal Tweets substack page, it seems that the case examiners DID ask to be removed from the case due to conflicts of interest in December 2021, but were told to remain on the case in January 2022 by the SWE Head of Adjudications.

Archived copy of the chronology on TT substack here

There was something on one of the earlier days of the tribunal about why Jack Aitken himself (apparently pivotal to the investigation) can’t appear as a witness - apparently he’s on honeymoon though…

Catabogus

...it seems that the case examiners DID ask to be removed from the case due to conflicts of interest in December 2021, but were told to remain on the case in January 2022 by the SWE Head of Adjudications.

Good grief! The HoA needs to be disciplined and surely the examiners should have had the nous to recuse themselves, if they tried to have themselves removed?