CALLS have been made for an external review of social work services in Fife after the murder of two-year-old Liam Fee.
Fife SNP councillor Neale Hanvey has called for the review after a report said systemic failures may have had a role in the misconduct of social worker Lesley Bate, who worked on Liam's case.
He is backed by Douglas Chapman, SNP MP for Dunfermline and West Fife.
Ms Bate was removed from the social work register after the week-long Scottish Social Services Council conduct hearing over poor practice in relation to cases she held relating to 15 children.
Nyomi and Rachel Fee - Liam's mother - have been jailed for a combined 47-and-a-half years for his murder.
Mr Hanvey said: “Sadly, this episode leaves a serious question mark over the quality of our services.
“An external review by an impartial body would enable them to rebuild trust and confidence with the wider community.
“It would give the social work service the opportunity to demonstrate its best practice while also being advised and supported on how best to strengthen and recover.
Mr Hanvey said: "The response from Fife Council is wholly inadequate, especially where there have been serious failings, not just of one particular employee, but where criticisms have been made of the culture within Fife Council's social work team.
A spokeswoman for Fife Council said: "This case does not reflect our current practice or the high standard of professionalism which we expect and receive from our social work staff.
"Fife Council's Children's Services have already been subject to a full independent joint inspection earlier this year by the Care Inspectorate, Education Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and HMI of Constabulary for Scotland, who evaluated services in Fife very positively.
“It remains extremely important that we continuously scrutinise the work that we do.
"Independent significant case reviews, such as that already underway commissioned by the children’s service’s partnership in Fife into the death of Liam Fee, contribute to this scrutiny and we look forward to promoting any learning from this review as widely as possible, to help improve practice across agencies.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel