Rotten from Council to Government

 Ed Balls learning to clap

Sharon Shoesmith "paid" to protect vulnerable children, but failing only to protect.

The Roller Coast ride between legitimacy and idiocy is exemplified by the decision of the Courts to award a six figure compensation fee to a woman who was incompetent and incapable of fulfilling her contract with her employers, the tax payer. 

By using powers his office did not have, according to the Law Courts, Ed Balls illustrated every dictatorial attribute of the semi-literate know-all that most politicians appear to manifest.  Let us not forget that Mssrs Balls and a great percentage of the leaders of all parties have never held a job of note.  They have no experience to provide the judgment that politicians want the country’s employers to show, a concept they cannot grasp themselves.

Sharon Shoesmith, by taking the right course and relying on the Courts, has put the dilemma under the national conscience microscope.  Yes, she was correct in that she was dismissed unfairly according to her contract.  But what few commentators have raised is who produced that iniquitous contract in the first place? 

Every council in the land has been seduced into overpaying second class employees, the general jobsworths who are the scourge of ordinary decent citizens whenever a need for public services arises.  From the evidence we must gleam that they have only half read their duty rules and standing orders, apparently without the slightest comprehension of what the rules mean.  Let us take their employment contract for instance.  To draw a salary, or to get paid for fulfilling a contract, one has to fulfill the major tenant of all contract law.  Both parties must undertake and complete that contract in full.  That is to say, in simple English, Sharon Shoesmith as head of a dysfunctional and failing organisation could never, in all decency, stand before a Judge and say that she had completed her part of the bargain unless she was contracted to fail.  But we have to be very careful as every soldier could be held liable for the death of a comrade at the height of an action irrespective of how brave their fellow heroes are.  Let us not fall into the trap of the Civil Servants mouthpieces and equate the rotten performances of overpaid public servants with that of those who put themselves in harms way for all our benefits.

The problem is written into the offer.  An offer is an expression of willingness to contract on specified terms, made with the intention that it is to be binding once accepted by the person to whom it is addressed.

A            OFFER

1                 There must be an objective manifestation of intent by the offeror to be bound by the offer if accepted by the other party. Therefore, the offeror will be bound if his words or conduct are such as to induce a reasonable third party observer to believe that he intends to be bound, even if in fact he has no such intention.

2                 An offer may be made expressly (by words) or by conduct.

B.           ACCEPTANCE

3.         An acceptance is a final and unqualified expression of assent to the terms of an offer. Again, there must be an objective manifestation, by the recipient of the offer, of an intention to be bound by its terms

4.         An offer must be accepted in accordance with its precise terms if it is to form an agreement. It must exactly match the offer and ALL terms must be accepted.

In every Council in the land there has to be scrutiny of contracts offered to employees.  That role should be undertaken by elected Councillors whom must be able to say to the executive that certain contracts are unacceptable.  I.E. Executives on salaries greater than that of the Prime Minister’s should have their contracts rescinded and made proportionate to the Office held. 

As sad as this case is, the pathetic response of the Caring Services to yet another murder of another child, namely Peter Connelly, Sharon Shoesmith’s attitudes reflects more on the Jobsworths in Councils than the ordinary person might suspect.  Like many Degree Nurses in our NHS, they appear to be beyond criticism and that is wrong.  

 It also tells us how abysmal Ed Balls has been as a Minister and how dangerous he will be as an undirectable Exocet in a future Labour Administration.