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The two recent additions to the list of social departments on special measures might feel they have failed, but some councils have found the experience to be positive. Sarah Wellard reports.

The news that Newham and Merton social services departments are to join the London boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Hackney, Haringey, Hillingdon and Lambeth on the special measures list could give the impression that social care in the capital is falling apart (News, February 15). Meanwhile, staff in the departments new to special measures will be asking what they can expect from the experience.

Kathryn Hudson, Newham's newly arrived social services director, argues that the problems encountered by her department are similar to those faced by other London authorities. Some difficulties are related to the challenging nature of the work. The east London borough has very high social needs and is the second poorest authority in the country by some reckonings.

Other difficulties are linked to recruiting and retaining staff. Vacancy levels in Newham are worryingly high, at around 25 per cent for children and families services. Combine this with soaring accommodation costs, and the availability of more lucrative and less stressful employment opportunities, and social work in the capital becomes an increasingly unattractive option.

Hudson is hopeful that the support the Social Services Inspectorate will offer the department now that it has been put on special measures will make a difference. She says: "It isn't about setting up another set of hurdles, but more about agreeing targets and a way forward." She believes it is important to achieve change gradually. "I wouldn't rule out restructuring completely but staff have already had a lot of change. It takes time to turn a department round."

But won't "naming and shaming" make it even harder for Newham to recruit staff? Despite all the problems, Hudson insists that it is a good time for social workers to come to work in Newham. She says: "I came to Newham knowing about the difficulties and wanting to take on the challenge. There's a real opportunity now for change, and genuine commitment from members and the rest of the council."

The experience of other councils on special measures suggests that Hudson's optimism is well founded. The north west London borough of Hillingdon has been on special measures for two years, but has brought down social worker vacancy levels from 40 per cent to 20 per cent, and claims to have achieved a host of other improvements. The council has just received a favourable SSI inspection for its children and families services, and director of social services Graeme Betts is hoping the department will soon be taken off the list.

Although the borough does not have the levels of deprivation of Newham and some of the other councils on special measures, Hillingdon does have a very mobile population, which makes it hard to keep track of people.

There is also a big homelessness problem. With Heathrow airport within Hillingdon's boundaries, the department receives an influx of young unaccompanied asylum seekers, amounting to more than one-third of looked-after children in the borough. Attracting staff is a problem at all levels, not just because of house prices but also because the local job market is tight. And people really can earn more from stacking shelves in a supermarket than working as care assistants.

But it would be wrong to suggest that factors outside a council's control like the cost of living and the demography of the borough are the only factors leading a council to fail. After all, plenty of authorities facing these sorts of difficulties still manage to provide decent services. Many of the departments on special measures have also experienced severe management or political problems.

Betts describes how he came to visit the department the day before he was due to start work, to be greeted with the news that children were not safe in Hillingdon. He says: "It was already dawning on me that the advertising pitch about it being a difficult job was right. It was not just children and families. The SSIwas critical of inspection and regulation and there were serious concerns about the running of the department, with inappropriate involvement of members. Frontline staff had seen five years of management upheavals, cuts and no direction. The previous director of social services had been appointed internally without advertising."

Improving morale by working closely with frontline staff has been key to achieving improvements in services says Betts. "You've got to get out there and listen to staff and be seen to be putting things right."

Betts feels the support offered by the SSI to Hillingdon has been a critical factor in addressing the political and management difficulties. One of his first steps involved reshuffling his management team. He says: "The SSIhas been down regularly, helping me lead seminars and reinforcing the message that the medicine I was suggesting really was necessary. It helped members to realise that you can't run social services on the cheap, even if that means pressures on other areas of the council."

But being on special measures can also impose additional pressures on departments, as Maureen Allan, director for Peterborough has found. A unitary authority created in 1998, Peterborough inherited a children and families service on special measures from Cambridgeshire Council. The department has just received its third child protection inspection in two and a half years.

Allan says: "The downside [of being on special measures] is the negative impact of constant reinspection on morale. Staff feel it puts the spotlight on them. It affects our ability to recruit in a competitive environment."

The good news for Peterborough is that last week the department received a favourable report on the most recent inspection of child protection services, which took place in November. The report describes the trend as one of continued improvement with good progress in the general standard of social work practice, quality assurance and inter-agency working.

Allan agrees there are also benefits in being on special measures. One is the extra input on issues such as developing Quality Protects. Allan says the department has received a generous slice of SSI time.

Another plus is that the special measures status encourages the whole authority to concentrate on improving social services. "The corporate focus on the need to provide financial and political support can be good news for the director," says Allan. She has also found the Association of Directors of Social Services to be very supportive. "It's a generous community in the ADSS. Everyone knows it is a hard enough job."

East Lincolnshire, another new unitary authority, has been on special measures since 1998. Peter Hay, director of social services, believes the council lost its way from the beginning, and failed to give enough priority to management, training and other back-up systems. None of the councillors had social services experience. Then, a negative SSI inspection coupled with a disastrous corporate reaction to the death of a child, Phillip Martin, meant that special measures were inevitable.

Hay says: "We'd lost focus. The concerns about us grew when we couldn't agree an action plan with the SSI."

Hay agrees that the extra inspections that councils on special measures receive put a lot of pressure on staff. But overall he describes the experience as positive. "The way the SSI has engaged with us has been very constructive. They came in and rolled up their sleeves. It was a critical time for us. If they'd got it wrong we'd have gone completely."

Hay says the department has made considerable progress over the past 18 months. "Monitored status has really helped focus minds on what we need to do. It has encouraged us to be honest about what wasn't working. Significant change is happening but you can't resolve these issues over night."

East Lincolnshire has another joint review coming up soon, so there is a chance that the council may be coming off special measures. But it is not clear quite what they have to do to achieve this.

Because of the importance of being seen to comply with the SSI, it is hard for directors to be openly critical. However, one director commented: "It's very important that the route out of special measures is clear. How improved do you actually have to be? The Department of Health should have a sense of the additional demands that being on special measures can impose."

Criteria for being on special measures

There are currently 15 social services departments on special measures.

Councils may be subject to special measures if:

• An inspection reveals that services are unsafe.
• An SSI/Audit Commission joint review reveals users are not well served by their social services.
• External investigations reveal substantial weaknesses.

Problems in councils on special measures include:

• Social worker vacancy rates of 30 per cent or more.
• Many vacant or acting senior management posts.
• A turbulent or unstable political environment.
• A culture of low morale and defensiveness.

Experience shows it takes two to three years to turn round poorly performing services to achieve satisfactory standards and to achieve the necessary culture change.

Source: Social Services Inspectorate, Modern Social Services, A Commitment to People, The 9th Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Social Services 1999-2000, Department of Health, 2000