Perhaps the wisest comment in the broadcast was that a series of small mistakes across multiple organisations caused a failure to protect Baby P from his mother and her boyfriend. Yet it also points out that David Cameron misinformed parliament about the age of Baby P's mother. A small mistake. The Sun newspaper misinformed the public about the number of social service's visits. A small mistake. The media reported that a doctor had failed to diagnose a broken back. Probably a small mistake (his back was unlikely to have been broken at the time of the examination according to a pathologist). Ed Balls expected an emergency inspection and report to take just two weeks when normally it would take months. A small mistake. A significant part of a Great Ormond Street report didn't reach inspectors. A deceitful mistake. Ofsted rated Social Services as good and then changed their minds, possibly after political manipulation (the report was edited numerous times by senior management not directly involved in the inspection and in consultation with Ed Ball's office). A worrying mistake. They then destroyed the evidence supporting their own study, as they do as a matter of course. An admin policy mistake. Sharon Shoesmith was unfairly dismissed and was subsequently awarded damages of nearly £680 000. A costly mistake.
According to the programme, since Baby P's death 260 other children have died. 26 of them were known to social services. These aren't mistakes, they are murder or manslaughter.
All mistakes should be corrected if we are to improve and I believe we should have laws against lying in public life. Incorrect statements should be corrected with as much 'volume' as the original error. I wrote about how this could work, here.
(You can read my original Baby P post here.)
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