News

London can be a great place to live and work but there are many challenges and difficulties to overcome, says Anthony Douglas.

The Climbie inquiry is keeping social services in London under the spotlight, uncomfortably so. That will continue for most of 2002, its impact likely to be heightened by the publication of the first national league tables in the summer, when a disproportionate number of London councils could be occupying the drop zones, especially for children’s services.

No London council is complacent about this. Social services continues to receive great political and managerial support within councils, and budgetary increases in 2003-4 will exceed 10 per cent in some councils. These will be paid for from within, to keep pace with demand, mostly at the expense of other hard-pressed services.

The reasons for difficulties are well documented. They include: the continuing rise in the numbers of looked-after children, which are unfunded by central government; the rising costs of specialist placements for disabled adults, fees for which are rising much faster than inflation; price wars between councils to attract staff and foster carers; the residential care and nursing home markets jamming up; and increasing pressure from Whitehall to deliver tougher targets on bed-blocking.

The managerial capacity to deal with all this is reducing rather than expanding. Even when salaries are hiked, shortlists are often meagre, and while none of these trends are new, the problem is not significantly abating despite a genuine commitment backed by resources from all levels of government to sort it.

London still has some of the most innovative projects you would find anywhere. The only refuge of note for child runaways, used to support vulnerable children from all over the country, is primarily funded from within London. Imaginative joint health and social care schemes like take-a-granny home services, which support pensioners alone in accident and emergency departments. The recent publicity about Rose Addis, the 94-year-old in the Whittington Hospital, shows how the press and politicians often make working life appear worse than it is, which further discourages recruitment. Good news stories never make the front page.

Multi-cultural life in London is a great strength, with most citizens finding something to enjoy in its diversity. More than 100 community languages are spoken in some boroughs. It is vital that councils’ workforces represent those communities. Boroughs like Tower Hamlets have made great strides in starting trainee schemes for local people to start a career in social care.

There is a lack of understanding about the complexity of working with service users from different cultures under pressure. Around 90 per cent of asylum seekers are in London, and work with them has grown into a specialism in its own right in many London boroughs. Thousands of displaced people have been helped to get back in control of their lives, a real achievement amid all the scaremongering.

Reorganisations continue to blight inter-agency working in the capital. Good inter-agency working requires a degree of staffing stability, so that trust and familiarity can grow between staff working in different professional cultures and disciplines. The NHS is in a state of perpetual flux, which delays progress in meeting key targets and consolidating change. The Probation Service has yet to settle down after shifting to a London-wide service. The magistracy is on the move. The police are about to be reformed again. The Connexions service is being given extra responsibilities before anyone has even met someone who works for it! And the plethora of new government initiatives lures staff away from the front line into the comfort zone of creative projects.

London is a great place to live and work, but the cost of living deters many potential staff from coming to live here, especially experienced staff, who are desperately needed in the capital. The recruitment shortage now extends to support staff such as accountants. And with the budget pressures all councils face, good accountants are as essential as good social workers.

Anthony Douglas is executive director of Community services, Havering Council.