Adrian Mcllelan And Gavin Mackintosh-
The Health And Care Professional tribune Service have been asked to disclose the full identities of offending social workers to demonstrate transparency and equal treatment consistent with the treatment given to other offending professionals.
This includes providing the respective ages, photograph, and former place of employment of the offending social worker. A spokesperson from the HCPTS told The Eye Of Media.Com: ”we don’t normally disclose as a matter of practise details of where a social worker disciplined by the tribunal works or their photograph, but we make available their names. It is up to journalists to obtain their photographs”.
However, after discussing in detail the findings of our elaborate research into this matter, she added: ” this is something we could look into”.
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PRACTISE
The current practise within the Hcpts regulatory body for social workers is to disclose the names of offending social workers, without mentioning their ages or publishing their photographs. The regulatory body, which conducts professional disciplinary tribunal hearings for social workers accused of misconduct consists of a high educated and well skilled team which listens to details of facts surrounding individual cases. The hearings take place at different venues in the Uk, where the rules of the industry and the statutory laws covering social work are heard and evaluated.
They carefully analyse the case and decide a verdict, which they publish . Their verdicts include striking off guilty social workers alongside a fine, suspending them, or sometimes just fining them. After several days of close discussions among The Eye Of Media thinktank, including corresponding discussions with lawyers, social workers, The Information and Commission Office, and random members of the public, it has been concluded that there is no justified reason why the ages and photograph of social workers guilty of misconduct should not be disclosed to the public, as is the case with other professions.
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Of a modest sample of social workers spoken to in Britain by The Eye Of Media.Com, just under 50% (24/50) said the photographs of social workers should not be disclosed to the public to protect the integrity of the profession. All those against publication of photographs, cited The Data Protection Act, but lawyers and officials at the Information Commissions Office have confirmed that the Data Protection Act only protects the identity of individuals, where there are no lawful reasons to disclose personal information in the public interest.
A sample of 100 members of the general public spoken to, 66 of them said offending social workers should be fully exposed for offences that include fraudulent conduct, exaggeration of hours worked, or failure to make necessary referrals, where they knew they had a legal obligation to do so. 41 of the 66 spoken to said exceptions should be made for social workers who did not complete a task due to work overload, if they made this known to a relevant person in authority, and requested for the missing elements to be delegated to someone else.
34 of those spoken to felt offending social workers should not have their photograph disclosed under any circumstances, out of respect for their job, but should have their ages disclosed, and where they worked, so that those who already know them will be in no doubt it was the particular individual being referred to.
RIGHTS
An official from the Information Commissioner’s Office told The Eye Of media.Com on the grounds of anonymity that:’
”the Prohibition of data processing applies only where the type of processing is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, requiring the controller of information to carry out a data protection impact assessment.
Referring to the statute, the astute female professional said from the top of her head:
Article 6(1) of the GDPR , addressing the lawfulness of processing justifies the processing of personal data necessary for the execution of public public interest or in the exercise of the controller’s official authority .
This includes the administration of justice, Parliamentary privilege , or to implement a function conferred on a person by the rule of law”.
The ICO said they don’t normally get involved in imposing obligations for organisations to disclose personal details of individuals, but rather focus on reviewing complaints in relation to alleged breaches of Data Protection or refusal to comply with Freedom Of Information Requests. However, they were happy to clarify the general context in which The Data Protection Works. The Social Regulation Authority and The Bar Standards Board have been recently criticised for failing to fully disclose the identities of offending solicitors and barristers, thereby endorsing a practise that affords them special protection and preferential treatment over those from other professions who commit the similar offences.
LAWYERS
The matter in relation to lawyers has been escalated to The Legal Standard Board, an independent body responsible for overseeing the regulation of lawyers in England and Wales. Discussions with them have so far yielded no mood to change the current practise, but we are yet to establish whether those at the top of the chain will see it necessary to adopt our thinking, which so far appears to have no obvious flaws. Further discussions with them are in progress.
It is the first time ever this practise has been openly openly challenged, and it has constituted one of many topics that has taken up several hours of private team discussions , research, and debate, before we decided to go public with it. Further discussions and which circumstances, if any, exceptions should be granted, are to be the subject of more meetings and discussions, in our determination to ensure we have the perfect balance for fair and equal practice, and application of law.
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