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It's a big day tomorrow for campaigners against the government's benefits reforms/cuts as the Welfare Reform Bill comes up for debate in the House of Lords.

One issue that has united charities across social care in condemnation is the planned abolition of the discretionary Social Fund, which provides grants and loans to people in crisis. Though the budget for crisis loans and community care grants is being devolved to councils, this will not be ring-fenced, nor will authorities face any statutory obligations to use the money as it is now used.

Now 20 charities from the worlds of disability (Scope), family support (Family Action), children's services (Barnardo's), homelessness (Crisis) and domestic violence (Women's Aid) are urging peers to back an amendment to effectively ring-fence the money.

They say: "As charities, working hard to respond to the needs of vulnerable children and adults in already desperate circumstances, we fear these changes could be catastrophic for some, such as those who resort to illegal moneylenders or high-cost credit, or women who return to live with a violent partner because they have no money to furnish another home for their children."

Let's see if the House of Lords hears this message.

In this guest post, Professor Keith Brown (left), Dr Steve Keen and Andrew Harding (right) of Bournemouth University argue that adult social work needs something akin to the Munro review of child protection to help develop the professional leadership that underpins good safeguarding.

Professor Eileen Munro, in her review of child protection in this country, suggested that improving professional leadership is central to improving services. Recent high profile failings such as Winterbourne View indicate that the same debate should be taking place in adult services, both in the sector and by those individuals tasked with safeguarding adults.

It is worth reiterating why the debate needs to shift towards the issue of professional leadership in adult services. The Dilnot report on the future funding of adult social care is a creative response to a complex issue. However, solely dealing with the economics of social care bypasses a major issue. Social care is a finite resource and although there is an extent to which the funding of the resource is an issue, adding to the resource or changing where it comes from will not necessarily change the way the resource is utilised.

Consideration must, therefore, be given to how to change the working culture of the social care sector. Professional leadership should be exercised in all aspects of social care provision, because it is where a caring culture begins. Although we would argue that people do not go to work in a care environment purposefully to commit acts of abuse, it can easily happen. At Winterbourne View it appeared that the first safety net to safeguard people - professional leadership - was not strong enough to challenge and prevent an abusive culture from being institutionalised. So how should the current culture of professional leadership in adult services evolve?

It's not very often you can claim victory over the government, but today is one of those days.

Yesterday, the government shelved any plans to abolish any of the social care duties on councils. The consultation which could have seen their abolition caused widespread outrage when it was unveiled in March.

Indeed the government is now saying that it never intended to get rid of any of these duties which were on the list as a result of the consultation. In fact, it never said it would.

Well, that's not the way I read their original statement, it wasn't the way Labour MPs read it, it wasn't the way founding father of disability rights Lord Alf Morris read it, it wasn't the way the unions read it, it wasn't the way social care charities read it and it wasn't the way Community Care readers read it either.

That's why they wrote to the DCLG in their droves.

That might not have happened had Community Care not been the first media outlet to publicise it.

Greg Clarke, minister for decentralisation, yesterday acknowledged that media interest had heightened responses urging the government not to cut the duties around adult or children's social care.

If I was being generous I might say the whole thing was simply a misunderstanding, crossed wires on the government's intentions. But part of being in government is being responsible. And if you hastily put together and all-encompassing list of statutory duties and sell it as an opportunity for people to get their least favourite whiped off the statute book, you can't be surprised when people think you might actually do it.

Thankfully, it looks unlikely to happen now as Clarke has acknowledged the primacy of the Law Commission and Munro reviews in adults and children's social care respectively.

You, readers, made that happen and I, for one, am proud to have been a part of it.

Image by Ste on Flickr

Check out Community Care's latest podcast which looks at what has been a momentous week for social care and social work.

The Law Commission has proposed the biggest legal reforms in 60 years to adult social care.

And Professor Eileen Munro has set out how child protection social work should be reformed.

Community Care is joined by three leading figures in social care - Andrew Cozens, strategic adviser at the Local Government Group, Julie Jones, chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, and Peter Hay, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, to discuss what these reforms mean.

Plus, live coverage of the #hardesthit protest against disability cuts.

On the same day as local election results are due, the Local Government Association has called for the removal of "nannying guidance" but for the retention of statutory duties that ensure the protection of vulnerable people.

In March, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), headed by Eric Pickles (left) outraged MPs, social work leaders and peers when it launched a consultation seeking to slash the duties placed on local authorities, including those in social care.

But in its response to the statutory duties consultation, the LGA concludes it is right that statutory duties apply to the provision of residents' core needs and ensure the protection of vulnerable people.

It says central government departments could save as much as £1.5 billion each year by reducing the amount of nannying guidance they issue to councils and pruning back unnecessary statutory duties. It is also seeking the removal of out-of-date duties and elimination of ministerial consent for minor activities.

Baroness Margaret Eaton, Chairman of LGA, said: "We would like this review to take away the more restrictive and unnecessary duties and introduce a system which ensures residents' core needs are met and vulnerable people protected, while offering councils the flexibility to deliver services in the most locally appropriate way."

Image from Department for Communities and Local Government on Flickr.com

Excellent - and worrying - research out today from our children's team about the toll that cuts are taking on the protection of children from abuse.
The poll of 170 frontline workers found that 58% believed pressure had been placed on them to reclassify child protection cases as less serious child-in-need cases.
Here's more on our very concerning findings.