News

The Scottish executive’s minister for education and young people wants to cut back the amount of bureaucracy social workers have to deal with, writes Derren Hayes.

Speaking at the Association of Directors of Social Work’s annual conference in Crieff this week, Peter Peacock admitted social workers have to currently do too much non-essential paper-work.

He said ministers were already looking into the issue and would be “happy to enter into a dialogue” about what information and statistics social work departments need to collect with an aim to “slim that down and make it more effective”.

Peacock backed the findings of a recent interim report of the 21st century review of social work which found social workers were spending so much time on administrative tasks, it was hampering their ability to practice innovatively and develop proper relationships with clients.

“I would love to cut down on form filling. It may not always be essential but at the time [measures were introduced] it seemed like the right thing to do.

“We have got to have a real purpose about collecting information and adapt our policies to changing needs – it is not in our interests to collect information for the sake of it,” Peacock said.

He admitted there were systems in local and central government that stifled social workers’ creativity and had removed professional autonomy. “We must make sure they can develop therapeutic relationships that research shows makes the most difference.”