This from the Daily Mail, this from Raedwald and then this from Booker. In a much smaller way, I have confronted this dilemma a different breed of officials - meat inspectors.
Given a marginal, difficult to read condition, it is easy for them to take the view "better safe than sorry", and condemn a carcase as unfit. But if they do that, and the meat is not unfit, they are throwing away good food, and depriving someone of the income from the animal. Thus, one expects meat inspectors to apply professional judgement and get it right.
The principle is the same with social workers, only even more so. One expects them to get it right when dealing with children and considering whether to remove them from their parents.
Wrong decisions either way are likely to lead to blighted lives and considerable public expenditure. And with Booker's copious evidence, it is clear that they are not getting it right. It really is about time, therefore, that our children's minister, Tim Loughton, listened to what he and many others are saying.
He might, says Booker, learn how misinformed he is. But then, that is the huge problem we have with so many areas of our governance. Politicians have lost the ability to listen.
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