One wonders if those social workers in Rotherham have any grasp of the incompetence they have displayed in their decision about the foster parents and their voting habits?
The European Convention on Human Rights stipulates (as was indicated in a recent case in Bradford) that people have the right to freedom of association and this encompasses political affiliations, whether or not you agree with them. By this token, they have contravened the human rights of these foster parents, which is surely contrary to key principles of social work? Perhaps they should concentrate a little more on the actual abuses of young people taking place in Yorkshire than the imagined “abuse” that being in the same house as people who vote for a minor political party might involve. Perhaps they would like to remove all the children of parents (foster or otherwise) who actually belong to UKIP? No doubt no disciplinary action will be taken (and as I write this, no apology has been forthcoming from what I’ve heard on local news) as their managers would not want to give their staff “confidence issues”.
T Maunder, Leeds
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