Nushra Mansuri, professional officer for the British Association of Social Workers, on why she believes the government's plans for a six-month time limit on care cases are "nonsensical" and likely to set social workers up to fail.
The government's response to the family justice review recognises (on page six) that the current system is "under strain" with substantial increases in case volumes - a 10% increase in public law cases over a 12 month period and a doubling of cases since 2008.
It is therefore incredulous that, in a climate of austerity where the mantra is 'more for less', we are expecting an already overstretched and beleaguered workforce to somehow work miracles in reducing delays in cases. It is nonsensical. But worse than that, this will set practitioners up to fail and will lead to more children being let down rather than protected.
It also seems a million miles away from the Munro report which espouses a learning culture, as opposed to a blame culture, and the removal of arbitrary and unnecessary targets that curtail practice rather than empower it to effect positive change.
This is not good news for the social work profession where people are already working around the clock to do the best job they can in difficult circumstances. Even the chair of the review panel David Norgrove said, in one of the regional seminars, that he recognised things were going to get worse before they get better. That's a powerful statement.
Norgrove also repeated the government's promise of there being no more money in the light of any reviews and we know the current agenda is all about so-called 'efficiencies'. Efficient for who I wonder? I am not aware of children being the beneficiaries of such measures.
The trend for government consultations is to carry out impact assessments. I would like to know if anyone has sat down and counted the cost of these proposals to some of the most vulnerable children in the country.
Perhaps it is poignant, that this week we celebrated the bi-centenary year of Charles Dickens' birth. If he was alive today, what would one of this country's greatest campaigners for children's rights make of such reforms? Reach for his quill no doubt and offer some social commentary to this sad state of affairs.
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