Posted: Friday, 4 January 2019 @ 13:43
It has been recently reported that sacked Haringey Children's Services Boss, Sharon Shoesmith secured a payout of more than £600,000
There is a confidentiality agreement in place but according to the Guardian the sum includes £217, 266 in compensation for loss of office and £377,267 for salary, fees and allowances.
This followed the conviction of, Peter Connelly's(Baby P) killers which led to one of the biggest child-protection controversies of recent years.
Peter, who was on Haringey's child-protection register, died after months of abuse. His mother, Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend, Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, were convicted in November 2008 of causing or allowing his death.
A financial settlement between Haringey and Shoesmith was agreed last October but the sum was not disclosed which is the normal state of play. However Haringey's published accounts enabled the press to put two and two together.
It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
What I do find pretty surprising is that Mr Balls who is a would be Chancellor next year said this week that whilst he was "frustrated" by the court's ruling, he said that he would make the same decision again.
He is reported to say "I had a duty to children in Haringey and across the country to act. It was my judgment that that was the only way to keep confidence in children's services."
Such a statement ignores the fact that Ms Shoesmith was by no means solely responsible for the death of the baby Peter and illustrates an unwillingness to learn the facts.
Moreover, it is not great to know that someone does not care too much if he saddles the tax payer with more than £600k of damages to an employee.
To boot, the council previously revealed it had spent £196,000 on legal costs fighting Shoesmith's appeal.
Expensive stuff.
But dealing with Ms Shoesmith's figures, why were they so high bearing in mind that the claim for unfair dismissal is capped at compensatory award: lower of £76,574 or 12 months' gross pay?
One of the key reasons why Miss Shoesmith was be entitled to such a high pay out was because she obtained what are known as McLaughlin damages, due to the fact that the decision to remove her from her post was held to be void.
A McLaughlin-type order refers to an order where it declared that an employee’s purported dismissal was ineffective in law to end his tenure in office and so (s)he was “entitled to recover arrears of salary and payment of pension contributions until he resigns or his tenure of office lawfully comes to an end”.
Since Ms Shoesmith never received formal notice, unless and until she either gave notice herself or notice was given to her, she remained in post and continued to be paid as such.
As she was on such a high salary and was not subject to a cap the claim jumped up.