Social Worker Quits After Misconduct Charge For Data Protection Breach

By Gavin Mackintosh-

A fitness to practice panel accepted that the social worker was “genuinely concerned as to his own safety and that of his family” when he used council systems to twice access files related to a father, despite having no authorization or professional purpose to do so.

Despite admitting sharing information from the records with colleagues and his family, the panel found the social worker’s actions amounted to misconduct, but exempted him from any disciplinary actions because they arose from an “exceptional set of circumstances” with several mitigating factors.

A“history of inappropriate behavior” towards social services staff since his children had been taken into care, and an altercation with the social worker in question outside the social services team’s offices, was taken into account by the panel.

The service user  reportedly blocked the social worker from leaving the office car park and behaved in a way described by a witness as “volatile” and “extreme” in the first incidence.  In the second incident, the service user followed the social worker “for some distance” after leaving the office before banging on his car window to tell him “he would follow him all the way home”.

The social worker was thereafter given special leave for work by the local authority after the second incident. A police investigation followed, after which the service user was bailed with conditions not to have any involvement with social services or to contact the social worker. A month later he was convicted of a public order offence for the incident in which the social worker gave evidence at the court hearing.

At a return to work meeting requested by the social worker he told his employers he was “extremely concerned for his and his family’s safety”. Incidentally, the social worker noted seeing the same individual in a TV documentary in which the man had displayed similar signs of aggression  towards social services staff.

The social worker admitted having accessed the records of the service user, his daughter and another of the man’s children because of his concerns. In a full admission, the social worker stated  he accessed the data without authorization and that “technically, it was a data protection breach”. However, he explained he had done so in order to safeguard himself and his family, adding:  “I made the conscious decision to access the records…to know precisely what I was up against.”

The social worker admitted  discovering  information about previous convictions relating to the service user, including previous incidents of violence against social services staff and other alleged violence committed by the man. Following a second investigatory panel over the issue, the social worker resigned and has entered another profession, with no intentions to return to social work.

The panel concluded that the social worker had accessed the records without authorization or a professional purpose for doing so. It rejected his submission that concern for his welfare and safety and that of his family constituted a professional purpose. It also found he had shared confidential information with colleagues and/or immediate family members.

The social worker’s actions amounted to misconduct and breached professional standards around professional boundaries and confidentiality, the panel concluded.

Without question, the decision of the social worker to share confidential information with his colleagues was extremely stupid! The social worker should have foreseen the high probability of being reported for his unprofessional action. Irrespective of this show of stupidity, a genuine concern for his family to know what he was ”up against” is mitigated by the very worrying characteristics shown by the service user. Families against whom unfavorable actions are taken by social workers can potentially pose a serious danger to social workers themselves. It may have been wiser for the social worker to have requested for intimate details about the service user’s background, if he was that worried.

The panel accepted that the events had “a significant impact” on the social worker’s health and contributed to him behaving in a way that he would not otherwise have done. His decision to access the records was not motivated by “idle curiosity or financial gain”, the panel reasoned, and he came forward to disclose that he’d accessed the records. This coming forward to disclose his actions was more out of necessity and stupidity, than it was a humble admission of guilt, though the panel failed to evaluate the social workers actions in this way.

A damning conclusion from the panel was directed to the council,  who having known the service user was “volatile”, had not taken adequate steps to protect the social worker from possible harm or at least to provide him with appropriate reassurance”. A statement from the panel read:

The panel did consider making a caution order but did not think that a caution order would serve to protect prospective service users or the public interest and thus was not necessary. Furthermore the Panel concluded that having regard to the strong mitigating circumstances identified above a caution order would be disproportionate.”

The panel’s decision makes sense, and was right.