Debate on impact of star ratings on social services in England

We asked:- Do you think star ratings have helped make
social services across England better?

These are some of the comments we
received:-

Whilst being a fairly crude indicator of achievement and success
the star rating system is better than nothing.

The indicators need continuing refinement. However the CSCI is
still not addressing the issue of councils that are failing
thousands of children and their families in Britain.

This is the biggest challenge over the next few years.

Roger Townsend

This is yet another completely spurious way of measuring the
effectiveness of a service according to some corporate criteria,
which is designed to make the bosses look good.

From a social work point of view, witness the number of staff
fed up by a lack of resources, fed up of being overworked and
underpaid, fed up of constant staff shortages, fed up of constant
re-organisations, and fed up of corporate spin, which pretends to
acknowledge the hard work put in by ‘real’ workers on the
ground.

This all leads to poor morale and people constantly leaving the
service to work elsewhere, because they feel ultimately the bosses
care more about their public image than they the service they claim
to represent.  

John Cotton