Letters to the Editor: Cynical view of ex-DCS is gobsmacking

Having made some small contribution to your feature on the challenges involved in recruiting and retaining directors of children's services, I turned to read it with some anticipation. It was a well-researched and well-written article – and under most circumstances, I would have been happy to write and say just that.

But this letter is borne out of my need to disassociate myself from the view given by a former DCS [Sharon Shoesmith] that one should not consider the role until age 55, for a maximum of three years and only on the basis of a deal that allows one to exit the role in the case of a child death with one's pension. I was gobsmacked by that level of bitter cynicism.

I share a view given elsewhere that being a DCS is the best job in the world if only for the unrivalled potential to do good in a world that often mistreats children. And it is a job fraught with peril and uncertainty – not helped by the government's intolerance of failure, even minor failure. But those failures can have the most profound, life-changing and – sometimes – life-shortening impacts on children.

The cynical view of the world expounded by that former DCS is not mine, nor that of most of the DCSs I know. It is a cynicism that helps no one: not serving DCSs, aspiring DCSs, the children's workforce at large – and definitely not the children we serve. It is a privilege to do what we do. Like most of the colleagues I work with, we do it for the children and not ourselves. That other view does us all a grave disservice.

Peter Lewis, interim director of children's services, Somerset Council

CLARIFICATION

The Who would want to be a DCS today? article drew a link between Colin Green, then DCS at Coventry, leaving his role and the heightened media profile of the Daniel Pelka case from July 2013. We would like to clarify that Green had publicly announced his intention to retire in April 2013. We are happy to correct this and have amended the online version of the article.