RRY v General Social Care Counsel [2007] EWCST 1306(SWSUS) (26 August 2008)

RRY
-v-
General Social Care Council
[2008] 1306.SW-SUS

DECISION

Before: Ms Andrea Rivers
	  Mrs Carol Caporn
	  Mrs Sallie Prewett

Heard at Sea Court Tower, Botley Road, Oxford on 11th August 2008

The appellant appeared in person. 

The respondent was represented by Katherine Bovey, solicitor.

1.	This is an appeal against a decision of the Preliminary Proceedings Committee (PPC) of the General Social Care Council (GSCC). The primary function of the PPC, as set out in Rule 5 of the GSCC (Conduct) Rules 2003, is to consider any complaint against a registrant and decide whether or not to refer it to the GSCC Conduct Committee. We note that the 2003 Conduct Rules have now been replaced by new Rules, which took effect on March 4th 2008. However, this case was referred to the PPC before that and is therefore subject to the 2003 Rules.

2.	While the matter is being considered, and until they make their decision, they may 
      impose an interim suspension order (ISO) on the registrant for periods of up to six  
      months, renewable to a total of two years. Rule 5(b) sets out the criteria for the 
      imposition of an ISO. These are: that they consider that it is “necessary for the 
      protection of the public or is otherwise in the public interest, or is in the interests 
      of the registrant concerned.” 

3.	S68 of the Care Standards Act 2000 provides a right of appeal against an ISO to this tribunal, which can either confirm the decision of the PPC, or direct that it shall not have effect.

Preliminary Application
4.	On 30th July 2008 the appellant wrote to the tribunal president, His Honour Judge David Pearl, requesting a restricted reporting order on the grounds that any publicity would have a detrimental effect on her relationship with her family, as they are currently unaware of these proceedings. Today Miss Bovey told us that she did not object to the application.  However, no members of the public attended the hearing.

5.	The appellant’s name, and the fact that she has been suspended, already appears on the GSCC website, therefore to some extent the matter is already in the public domain. However, details of the reasons for the suspension have not been made public and in order to protect the appellant’s privacy we have decided, pursuant to Rule 27 of the CST Regulations, to refer to her henceforth by her initials, RRY. In making this decision we take particular account of the fact that these are only interim proceedings, no final determination of the complaint against her having yet been made. The identity of the client in relation to whom the complaint was made has also been anonymised.

Background Facts
6.	RRY qualified as a social worker in 2004 having previously worked for Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) in social and health care positions for approximately twenty years. At the time of the complaint she was employed by them as a social worker in a specialist team for the older people. Her work involved visiting them in their homes.

7.	One of her clients was an 84 year old lady, Miss R. In June 2006 Miss R’s niece contacted OCC, expressing concerns about apparent discrepancies in her aunt’s financial records. She had discovered this whilst going through the papers shortly after her aunt had had to move to a residential home, due to her increasing frailty.

8.	Following further investigations it emerged that two cheques, one for £700 written in January 2006, and another for £5,000, written in March 2006, had been drawn on Miss R’s account and put into RR’s account. Both had been filled out by RRY and signed by Miss R.

9.	RRY said that the £700 was re-imbursement for money she had laid out for Miss R for Christmas shopping, although she was not able to produce itemised details or receipts. However, she said she did not know how the £5,000 got into her account. She said she had no recollection of it, and the only explanation she could offer was that at the time she was suffering a mental breakdown, brought on by a succession of personal tragedies. 

10.	The money was still in her account and she wrote out a cheque for the £5,000 and gave it OCC to be passed on to Miss R.

11.	RRY was immediately suspended from her job, pending a disciplinary hearing, and the matter was reported to the police, who interviewed RRY. The disciplinary hearing was held up, due to RR’s extremely fragile mental state at that time, together with the need to await the outcome of police investigations, but it was eventually fixed for December 15th 2006. On that day, however, RRY tendered her resignation, and it was accepted.

12.	The outcome of the police investigation was that they accepted RRY’s explanations about the £700 which, they said, were consistent with the information discovered in their investigations. They referred the matter of the £5,000 to the Crown Prosecution Service who then decided not to prosecute. 

13.	The OCC then referred the matter to the GSCC. We were provided with a copy of the Complaint Form which they used to make the referral. It was undated and unsigned but stamped 22 December 2006, so presumably that is the date on which it was received by the GSCC. 

14.	It appears that the complaint was not referred to the PPC until February 2008 and we were unable to ascertain the reason for this long delay. The ISO was not imposed until April 8th 2008, by which time RRY had already begun to work again, initially as a support worker in a Residential Home for Adults with Learning Difficulties, then as a reviewing officer for Reading Borough Council and then as a social worker in a mental health team. The ISO prevented her from continuing in that post but she went on to get a job as the deputy manager of a residential home, which did not require GSCC registration. However, on August 1st 2008 OCC notified her employers of the ISO and she told us that she has now been suspended from that post.

The PPC’s grounds for imposing the ISO
15.	The PPC decided to impose the ISO on the grounds that it was “necessary in the interest of the protection of members of the public and in the public interest.”

16.	They found that the first of these tests, the need to protect members of the public, was satisfied in this case because of the seriousness of the allegation and the potential risk to service users if RRY were to continue to practise as a social worker, pending the outcome of the decision of the Conduct Committee.

17.	The second test, that of the “public interest”, was satisfied because of the need for members of the public to have trust and confidence in the social work profession and to be assured that their professional body will insist on the highest standards from its members.

RR’s grounds of appeal against that decision
18.	In her statement to the tribunal and in her oral evidence RRY asked us to take into account her deep remorse at what had happened and her previously unblemished record of twenty years’ work in the field of health and social care. 

19.	Once again she said that she had no recollection of what had happened but agreed that the only explanation as to how the cheque had been written and how the money had got into her account, was that she herself was responsible. She could only conclude that she had done these things while unaware of what she was doing, due to a mental breakdown. She said that more recently her life circumstances had improved and she had regained her mental stability, so that there was no longer a risk of anything similar happening in the future.

Decision
20.	There is no dispute about the fact that RRY put into her bank a cheque from Miss R, made out by RRY and signed by Miss R, in the sum of £5,000. 

21.	RR’s explanation is that she was ill at the time but that she has now recovered, and that there is therefore no longer a risk of a similar occurrence.

22.	The GSCC has a specific procedure, set out in Rule 10 of their conduct rules in relation to allegations of misconduct which “may have been caused or substantially contributed to, by the Registrant’s physical or mental ill health”. The rule goes on to say that in such cases the Council “shall appoint a Medical Adviser to advise each Committee that is to consider the allegation of misconduct”.  If they decide to follow this procedure we understand that RRY has her GP and hospital records available and is willing to disclose them to the PPC.

23.	However, at this interim stage, Rule 10 has not yet been applied in relation to this case and we are not in a position to make findings in relation to RR’s mental health, either at the relevant time, or now. 

24.	We are dealing with an allegation, the facts of which are not in dispute. It is an allegation of the utmost seriousness, bearing in mind the size of the sum of money, the vulnerability of Miss R, an 84 year old lady in a frail mental state, and the trusted position RRY held as her social worker, giving her access to Miss R’s personal finances. We also note that the cheque for £5,000 was written shortly prior to Miss R’s admission to the residential home, at a time when her mental frailty must have been causing increasing concern, so that she would have been in a particularly vulnerable state of mind.

25.	The circumstances surrounding the incident may or may not affect the view of the Conduct Committee in coming to a decision as to whether or not it amounts to misconduct and, if so, whether there are mitigating circumstances. This has yet to be explored. In the meantime we find that the seriousness both of the allegation and of the potential risk to vulnerable members of the public are such that it is necessary for the protection of the public that RRY be suspended from working as a social worker pending the determination of the Conduct Committee.

26.	In considering whether or not a suspension is necessary in the public interest we are guided by the case of Bolton v The Law Society [1994] 1WLR 512 which was drawn to our attention by Miss Bovey and in which it was said by Sir Thomas Bingham MR that “…a profession’s most valuable asset is its collective reputation and the confidence which that inspires”.  Thus we consider that an  ISO is  necessary to protect the reputation of the social work profession in the eyes of the public.

27.	We are, however, concerned at the length of time this matter is taking to resolve. The initial referral was in December 2006 and it was not until April 2008 that it came before the PPC and the ISO was imposed. Before that, RRY had continued to work as a social worker. 

28.	It is now over four months since the ISO was imposed and we understand the matter is in the hands of an investigating officer who will report to the PPC. The only contact RRY has had with the investigating officer is, she told us, when he requested details of her employer. The only other evidence we have of any further progress in the matter is that a transcript of her police interview in September 2006 has been obtained. 

29.	The matter has already been investigated in some detail by OCC for the purposes of their disciplinary proceedings in December 2006. There are statements from witnesses and information about the incident itself and the circumstances surrounding the incident. These were all made available to us and are therefore available to the PPC.

31.	 In Bradford v GSCC [2006]792.SW-SUS, which also concerned an appeal against an ISO, the tribunal observed that “It is…important that the imposition of an interim suspension order should not lead to the determination of a complaint being delayed”.  The ISO imposed on RRY expires in October and the referral process will need to be reviewed before then. We hope that by that time the complaint will be ready for referral to the GSCC Conduct Committee.

32.	In imposing the ISO the PPC stated that “the imposition of an ISO for six months was necessary both for the registrant to prepare for the next hearing and for the GSCC to progress its investigations for that hearing”. RRY told us that she does not know how to prepare for the hearing.  She has so far been unable to obtain representation and when she has contacted the GSCC they have not felt able to provide her with any information to help her prepare her case.  In our view there needs to be some channel of communication between her and the GSCC, so that she can find out if there is any further evidence which she should provide them with, to enable her to present her side of the story at any future hearings of the PPC or the Conduct Committee. 

33.	The PPC will also need to have information in respect of her workplace behaviour, professional performance, sickness patterns and health records, as without them neither mitigation nor the level of risk can be gauged. There should be no problem in obtaining this information, to enable them to decide whether to refer the matter to the Conduct Committee without further delay. 

Conclusion
34.	It is the unanimous decision of the tribunal that this appeal be dismissed.

Ms Andrea Rivers
Mrs Carol Caporn
Mrs Sallie Prewett

26th August 2008