Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care v Social Work England & Anor

In professional regulation, impairment may be required to protect public confidence and professional standards even where the immediate risk of repetition appears low. A panel must assess whether misconduct is remediated by examining insight, attitude and behaviour consistently with its factual findings. Dishonesty in obtaining professional employment may threaten public safety because it deprives the prospective employer of information needed to assess risk. Personal hardship and the risk of deskilling may inform sanction, but cannot justify an inadequate sanction where the public interest requires restriction on practice.

The Professional Standards Authority appealed under section 29 of the National Health Service Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002 against a decision of a Social Work England adjudication panel concerning MDR. The Panel found emotional abuse of her children and dishonesty in a job interview proved. It found current impairment on the public-confidence and professional-standards limbs of section 37(2) of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, but not on the public-health, safety and wellbeing limb, and imposed a five-year warning.

The appeal concerned the Panel’s assessment of repetition, insight, remediation and sanction, and whether the decision was wrong or irrational.

1. Appeal allowed in part. The Panel’s decision on impairment was quashed as wrong and irrational. The court substituted a finding that all three objectives in section 37(2) of the Children and Social Work Act 2017 were engaged. The sanction decision was also quashed and remitted to a differently constituted Panel for fresh determination.
2. The Panel’s conclusion that the dishonesty at a job interview was isolated and carried a negligible risk of repetition was unsustainable. MDR had relied on evidence from her daughter which she knew to be untruthful, and had repeatedly minimised or disputed her dishonesty. Those findings were inconsistent with proper insight and remediation.
3. Misconduct described as attitudinal and behavioural is capable of remediation in principle. However, a panel must assess remediation against the person’s actual conduct, insight and appreciation of the gravity of the misconduct. Here, the continuing lack of insight meant that the risk to public health, safety and wellbeing had not been shown to be remediated.
4. Dishonesty in a recruitment interview may place the practitioner’s interests above public protection. It may deny an employer information required to assess the risk of employing the candidate and damage the proper operation of professional recruitment.
5. The decision to impose a warning was infected by the errors concerning repetition, insight and remediation. The Panel also treated exceptional personal circumstances as justifying a lesser sanction, although personal mitigation cannot displace the public interest where restriction is otherwise required. The assessment of sanction had to be reconsidered.
6. The court did not determine the challenge to the Legal Adviser’s advice. It considered that any omission concerning the Bolton principles was not sufficient independently to invalidate the decision.
7. Although suspension appeared a possible outcome, remittal was preferable because strong professional references meant that a properly directed Panel might still conclude that suspension would create an unjustified risk of deskilling.

• Social Work England adjudication Panel: found the allegations proved, found impairment on the public-confidence and professional-standards grounds but not the public-health, safety and wellbeing ground, and imposed a five-year warning.
• High Court (Administrative Court): allowed the appeal to the extent stated, quashed the impairment and sanction decisions, substituted a finding under all three statutory objectives, and remitted sanction for fresh determination.