Evelyn Banks v Social Work England

An appellate court hearing a statutory appeal from a professional adjudication panel must review, rather than rehear, the panel’s decision. It may intervene only where the decision was wrong or unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity.

Sanction is a multifactorial evaluative decision. The appellate court must respect the panel’s professional expertise and should intervene only for an error of principle or a conclusion outside the range of reasonable outcomes. Adequate reasons need explain why the sanction imposed was appropriate and why lesser sanctions were rejected, but a panel need not address every submission or consideration separately.

Where a panel has cogently concluded that no workable conditions could protect the public, it need not separately test proposed conditions against every guidance factor.

This was a statutory appeal under Part 5 and Schedule 2 of the Social Workers Regulations 2018. Social Work England had imposed a 12-month Suspension Order after an adjudication panel found that the appellant’s competence and capability were deficient, that her fitness to practise was impaired, and that she posed a continuing risk to service users and to public confidence in the profession.

The factual findings and impairment conclusions were not challenged. The appeal concerned whether the panel had given sufficient reasons for rejecting a Conditions of Practice Order and whether the Suspension Order was wrong or outside the range of reasonable outcomes.

1. Appeal dismissed. The panel’s decision was neither wrong nor unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity.
2. The appellate court’s task was to review the panel’s decision, not to rehear the merits or substitute its own factual and evaluative conclusions. Sanction was a multifactorial decision involving fact and law. Intervention was justified only for an error of principle, internal illogicality, procedural irregularity, or a conclusion outside the range of outcomes reasonably open to the panel.
3. The panel’s reasons had to be read as a whole and in the context of its findings on competence, impairment, risk, insight and remediation. Its six stated reasons for rejecting a Conditions of Practice Order were sufficient. They addressed the seriousness and breadth of the failings, the risk of repetition, the fact that failings had occurred despite close supervision, and the appellant’s limited insight into the risk of harm.
4. Paragraph 124 of the Social Work England Impairment and Sanctions Guidance did not require the panel to test individual proposed conditions where it had already concluded, for cogent reasons, that no conditions short of suspension could adequately protect the public. In any event, the relevant factors had been addressed indirectly and sufficiently.
5. The interim conditions did not provide evidence that a Conditions of Practice Order would be workable or protective. They had not been tested in practice because the appellant had not worked under them.
6. The criteria in paragraphs 136 and 137 of the Guidance supported suspension: the concerns involved serious breaches of professional standards, workable conditions could not be formulated, the case did not require removal, and there was some insight and willingness to remediate. The panel was entitled to move beyond a Conditions of Practice Order because the criteria in paragraph 114 were not all satisfied.
7. The complaints about omitted mitigation and the treatment of the appellant’s belief that a warning would protect the public amounted to disagreement with the weight given to the evidence. The panel was entitled to treat that belief as an indicator of limited insight.
8. The 12-month Suspension Order was therefore within the range of reasonable orders. The appeal was dismissed and the parties were invited to agree the consequential order.

• Social Work England adjudication panel: On 9 May 2024, imposed a 12-month Suspension Order following findings of lack of competence or capability and impairment of fitness to practise.
• High Court (Administrative Court): The statutory appeal was dismissed.