Parents recording conversations with Children's Services

Wednesday 09 September 2020

Parents have lost so much trust in Children's Services social workers that they have turned to secretly recording their conversations to prevent false information going on record, it has been claimed.

The revelation came from St. Helier Deputy Mike Higgins, who said during yesterday's States Assembly meeting that “many of the users of the service do not trust it and are in fear of losing their children because of the action of some of the social workers."

He later asked Children’s Minister Senator Sam Mézec: “Earlier in my questioning... I mentioned that clients of the children’s service are having to resort to tape recording all interaction with his department’s officers, who are accused of making false entries in their records which are being used by the courts to determine whether or not children are taken into care.

“Does the Minister think it’s right for his officers to threaten these people for Data Protection Breaches for these recordings when they are not breaking the Data Protection Law, and what will he do about the record keeping which had many false entries?” 

Pictured: Senator Mézec said he was aware of the concerns that some members of the public have around the Children's Service.  

In response, Senator Mézec stated he was “aware of at least one instance where a recording of a meeting did help figure out that mistakes had been made", adding: "...in that instance was helpful in getting that acknowledgement, so I don’t think that the service should be threatening people who come into contact with it.”

He then stated that he was “aware of some concerns that some members of the public have” and was raising them with his officers, adding that he was “frankly not pleased with how they’ve been handled and the length of time it’s taken to deal with some of that.” 

Deputy Higgins then inquired as to whether the clients of Children's Services would be allowed to see their records “so they can point out the errors.”  

Pictured: St. Helier Deputy, Mike Higgins, has claimed parents are being accused of Data Protection Breaches by social workers.

Senator Mézec responded by saying the service “acknowledges that there have been difficulties in record keeping over the years”, though he pointed out that “there have been updates to that system."

"...Since I’ve taken office the feedback we’re getting is that it’s a better system," he continued.

“But it’s also true to say there have been wrong entries put in the system that ought to be corrected, and those who have had misinformation recorded ought to be apologised to for that. 

“I’m sure it is the case that they do have the rights to access their records and ask for that, and I would certainly undertake that where mistakes are made information is inputted wrongly, then that ought to be corrected.”