ABSTRACT
At its most basic, scandal involves unanticipated exposure, followed by disapproval. Those involved in welfare scandals are almost always, in our assessment, taken unawares by the drama which engulfs their lives. Within institutions, as we have seen, the practices which become the focus of inquiry are usually of long-standing. Even afterwards, in many cases, such as at Farleigh Hospital, a significant body of internal opinion remained unconvinced that anything untoward, let alone scandalous, had ever taken place. It is only when institutional actors step outside the confines of internal routines that scandal becomes a conscious possibility. Nurses at Normansfield were alert to the scandalous possibilities of strike action. The authorities in Staffordshire were conscious that questions might be asked of Tony Latham’s Fundwell activities. As to fieldwork scandals, the unanticipated element here refers to the events themselves. While Committees of Inquiry argue that the passage of affairs, in general, could have been altered by different decisions earlier in the chain of circumstances, few attempt to apply this rather banal conclusion to the particular event which form the focus of their investigation. The inherent unpredictability of acute mental illness and the stresses and volatility of circumstances in which child deaths occur are not amenable to anticipation. Scandal in social welfare, therefore, does not usually involve the sort of conscious risk-taking which is an integral part of scandals in other domains such as those involving politicians or big business (viz. Jeffrey Archer or Nick Lesson). 1 Rather, it involves processes whereby the private actions of individuals or the routine practices of institutions attract public censure in ways entirely unforeseen by those directly involved.
