Byrne slams press criticism of workers

Care services minister Liam Byrne has attacked a newspaper article that interpreted last week’s social services star rating report as an attack on “unacceptably poor and slow” social workers.
The story in the Daily Mail, which claimed the “damning” Commission for Social Care Inspection report had condemned social workers in a quarter of the country, was “outrageous”, Byrne told Community Care.

Under the headline “Shaming of our social workers”, the story suggested that nothing had been done to “improve the miserable lives of 60,000 children in care homes”.

But the CSCI report highlighted an overall improvement in services, and Byrne said social care teams were doing an extremely good job in difficult circumstances.

“They are not over-blessed with resources and the fact that overall there has been such a shift up in performance this year speaks volumes about the sector’s commitment to improvement,” he said.

He was delighted that only 1 per cent of the population was now served by zero-star rated councils.

But he said even one zero-star council was too many and that too many local authorities were coasting.

See News Analysis