🎩 On the Theatre of Incompetence: A Dispatch to Westminster’s Social Services
Date: 30 June 2024
Recipient: Mr Ernie, Senior Practitioner
Institution: Westminster Children’s Services
📜 Dear Ernie,
As you are undoubtedly aware, we fulfilled — promptly, precisely, and without issue — the three requests you made prior to our last meeting. Regrettably, it appears that the only party unable to meet their obligations was, predictably, yourself. Specifically:
You failed to access the documents in question, and more egregiously, you neglected to inform me of this failure for several months;
Despite being provided with the children’s father’s contact details — and despite my generous offer to facilitate a call in your presence — you have made no meaningful effort to engage. Your sporadic ten-minute visits, during which you barely lift the phone, speak more eloquently than any report.
🩺 Institutional Harassment by Misdirection
Further compounding your catalogue of errors, I attended a psychological consultation to address the cumulative toll of what can only be described as institutional harassment.
Imagine my astonishment to discover that you had misrepresented the purpose of this consultation, falsely framing it to the psychologist as pertaining to domestic violence — a topic never raised, referenced, or even remotely implied in any of our meetings.
This is not merely misleading. It is professionally indefensible.
🎭 The Erratic Art of Non-Execution
Your method, Ernie, can best be described as erratic performance. You make proposals during meetings — plans, in theory — only to consistently fail in their execution.
The absence of consistency has become your most dependable trait.
Moreover, you have brought two unknown social workers into my home — unannounced, unexplained, and without the basic courtesy of introduction, as if procedural etiquette were merely optional.
Instead of forethought, you offer fragmented, post-factum email explanations, treating disruption as an afterthought.
🎪 On the Illusion of Curiosity
At one meeting, someone asked — rather performatively — what our day looks like.
A charming question, no doubt rehearsed for the record.
And yet, you have never, not once, inquired into the true substance of our daily lives.
What you seek is not understanding — it is documentation. A performance of concern rather than the practice of care.
📢 Closing Reflection: The Decorum You Forgot
In closing, I urge you, Ernie, to reflect on:
The true purpose of your role;
The standards to which you are ostensibly bound;
And the basic human dignity with which families — especially those under sustained institutional scrutiny — deserve to be treated.
Yours, without expectation of improvement,
Polly