Community Care Editorial Comment

Adoption league tables will mislead

By Mike McNabb on November 3, 2011 4:15 PM | No Comments

By Judy Cooper, children's editor

The government has made good on its threat to whip local authorities into shape on adoption by publishing league tables. While this has gone down a treat with the national media it has caused outrage in the sector.

The problem is the crudity of such tables which provide headline figures without context.

York places 100% of its looked-after children within 12 months of a court order, but we have no idea how many of these adoptions breakdown with children ending up in care again.

Hackney places only 43% but what problems do they face in recruiting suitable, adoptive parents?

It would be easier to accept the government's insistence that there is no excuse for such disparities between local authorities if closer examination of the tables did not reveal an absurdity.

Harrow Council, north west London is repeatedly referred to by children's minister Tim Loughton as a leader in adoption good practice, yet it is placed 114 in the league table with only 67% of children adopted within 12 months.

This is below Birmingham Council (69%), which, as most commentators recognise, is still battling big problems when it comes to children's services.

The percentage of children leaving care because of adoption in Harrow is 10% - far below Derby at 26%.

Adoption is all about getting decisions right the first time. The reality is that speed and sheer numbers of children give no insight into how many good decisions are being made.

Michael Gove: 'judges must not second guess social workers'. Music to our ears...

By Judy Cooper, Children's editor on October 28, 2011 11:02 AM | No Comments

The final report of the Family Justice Review is expected early next month. If the indications from the National Children's and Adults Services Conference are anything to go by, ministers look set to back expected recommendations that judges get their house in order when it comes to excessive delay in the courts.

Education secretary Michael Gove told the conference that judges must not "second-guess" social workers who are on the ground. Children's minister Tim Loughton said: "The family justice review report will have serious things to say about reducing delay and we have got to bring judges with us, hopefully not kicking and screaming, but if that's what it takes we will do it."

This is all music to the ears of councils and frontline workers who have for years had to battle what has been described as "judges who want to be social workers".
But judges argue they are being expected to make draconian decisions on taking children away from their families when they have serious doubts about the care plans in place. Many have pushed for more say on care-planning, not less.

It will be interesting to see how this particular fight plays out. Judges and lawyers are likely to fiercely defend any perceived attack on judicial freedom. It remains to be seen whether ministers were simply talking tough, to appeal to their local authority audience last week, or if they are equally serious, at long last, about defending the professionalism of social workers.

Clarity drowned in wave of policy-speak at NCASC session

By Bronagh Miskelly, Group Editor on October 19, 2011 4:55 PM | No Comments

I've had a lot of difficulty understanding a lot of the language and methodology in the Health and Social Care Bill." So said Cumbria councillor Duncan Fairburn in the National Children and Adult Services Conference on "Making health and wellbeing boards work for other people".

Sadly, unclear language and policy-speak certainly outweighed any discussion of what HWBs might actually mean for or do for older people.

I was not alone in my frustration that we heard about facilitated workshops, stakeholder engagement exercises and board capacity building alongside debate about who should be on the HWBs but little about aims or direction - the Twitter commentary accompanying the session mentioned "outcomes" many more times than the live discussion.

A question on including the voices of service users was met by a promise of an "engagement strategy", rather than a focus on "talking to people".

Phil Swann of Shared Intelligence tried to change the debate by suggesting the boards started from the point of view of the tasks and developments they needed to deliver and create structures to do so.

But the great fear shared by several attendees was that the opportunities for change the HWBs could deliver will be mired in a swamp of policy-speak and structural focus.

Cutting red tape will only go so far

By Mithran Samuel, adults' editor, on October 19, 2011 1:54 AM | No Comments

By Mithran Samuel, adults' services editor

It should come as no surprise that cutting bureaucracy is at the heart of sector leaders' pitch for driving forward personalisation, issued at this week's National Children and Adults Services Conference.

The proposals from the Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) coalition follow several reports detailing how restrictions on the use of personal budgets and multiple assessment processes have reduced outcomes and efficiency - despite often being imposed to control costs.

Stripping out this bureaucracy is clearly vital, but will be easier said than done.

TLAP has published a series of indicators of progress but it will be up to councils to sign up to these and publish their results.

With progress on personalisation so variable, this must not become the preserve of the best councils.

But cutting red tape is not the whole story, particularly if we also want to address the inequalities between client groups in accessing choice and control.

It may make sense for social workers' role in support planning to be restricted to helping those with the greatest needs, as is proposed this week, leaving other service users freer to determine their own plans.

However, there is a lack of detail as yet as to how they should provide this support to groups such as people with dementia, those who lack capacity or those who are isolated. This hole must be filled - and social workers must be fully engaged in doing so.

Quarter of social workers have second jobs: a shocking statistic

By Bronagh Miskelly, Group Editor on October 13, 2011 11:01 AM | No Comments

Money makes the world go round - or at the very least is used as a measure of how we value a job or a profession. More money is related to higher status, qualifications and/or importance.
Which casts an interesting and alarming light over our survey with the College of Social Work on social workers, income and second jobs.

We already know that some social care workers would be better off working on a supermarket checkout, now we find that social workers are taking on night shifts in care homes or signing up for waiting and bar work to make ends meet. Half the social workers who responded reported their incomes had been frozen this year with a further third experiencing pay cuts.

A quarter have second jobs, in most cases simply to cover their bills. This means staff who already work long hours in their primary jobs are under more strain. None of which can be good for them or the vulnerable people they have a responsibility to.

Over the past few years there has been much rhetoric about the importance of social care and the need to increase the status of social work. These findings show how far there is to go in achieving that. If as a society we really valued these roles we would not see someone making significant safeguarding decisions by day and pulling pints by night.

Yes, we all have to cut our cloth to meet the economic circumstances, but undermining a whole profession in this way will have serious long-term consequences.

Quarter of social workers have second jobs

78% of social workers struggling to make ends meet

Support staff must not take lead roles

By Ruth Smith, head of content, on October 6, 2011 12:06 AM | No Comments

The news this week that support staff are being used to replace qualified social workers requires urgent action at a national and local level.

It is shocking that social work assistants are acting as the lead worker on complex child and adult protection investigations. But what is worse is that they receive no day-to-day supervision to do this.

Social workers are highly trained and registered professionals for good reasons - bypassing training and quality controls creates needless risk for both staff and clients.

Clear national guidelines and protocols must be drawn up to create benchmarks for good practice. These must define the boundaries between social workers and support staff. While these guidelines need some degree of flexibility, and must be adapted to meet local circumstances, there should be no room for doubt about what is unacceptable.

Assistants taking a lead role in complex safeguarding cases is unacceptable, as is any failure to provide regular supervision, support and training.

Social care assistants need accredited qualifications and their development needs must form part of national workforce strategies.

What's more, to be told that abuse is part of the job is simply unacceptable. Pay grades should not matter - abuse of social workers and social care professionals is not on. All employers should have and must actively implement clear guidelines on reporting and dealing with abuse.

Pattern of children's services cuts proves revealing

By Ruth Smith, head of content, on September 28, 2011 12:03 AM | No Comments

The first official overview of what's happened to children's social care spending since the public sector spending cuts is outlined this week by Community Care.

Of concern is that local authority funding for asylum-seeking children will fall by nearly a third this year. Money for looked-after children's education is to drop by a fifth.

While neither of these services is a vote winner, the failure to support these children properly could lead to greater costs in the long-run.

Meanwhile, council spending on special guardianship is to increase by more than 60% at the expense of fostering and adoption.

This disproportionate increase in special guardianship spending needs further investigation.

It is of course vital that that the family and friends who often become special guardians gain proper financial support. But, there is already some evidence to suggest that special guardianship orders are becoming a rival to the adoption of very young children in a way not envisaged by the legislation.

Unlike adoption, special guardianship orders do not require the same level of scrutiny by an adoption panel and court.

They can appear to be the cheaper, easier, more pragmatic solution, but more research is needed into the long-term effects on the child of these orders.

These orders can provide a secure option for children. But we must ensure they are not being used inappropriately to save time and money.

Truth behind the fall in social work vacancy rates

By Bronagh Miskelly, Group Editor on September 20, 2011 3:00 PM | 2 Comments

When it comes to workforce planning for UK social work and the levels of vacancies in local authorities there is an elephant in the room that our annual vacancy survey points at.

To adapt the riddle: when is a vacancy not a vacancy? Perhaps when it has, in effect, existed for a number of years.

In the three years of our annual vacancy survey we have seen the overall rate fall from about 11% to the current 8%. But that is still high, and yet, as we have reported recently, large numbers of newly qualified social workers remain without jobs.

All of which begs the question: do local authorities now consider these vacancy rates acceptable and are current staffing levels actually what we can expect in the future?

Richmond upon Thames is an interesting case in this context. In 2010 Richmond had a vacancy rate of 36% - one-third of its posts were empty. Today it reports a rate of 8%. This remarkable turnaround was achieved through a restructuring process which has seen the council's total number of social work posts cut by about one-tenth. In effect, Richmond has axed about as many posts as it has filled. And its chief executive says that a vacancy rate of 10% is acceptable.

In this era of cuts, are we likely to see councils reducing their job counts - and vacancy rates by association -  on the principle that they have managed this long on reduced numbers? If this is even remotely likely we need to confront the elephant head-on and have a frank discussion about reform.

Special report on social work vacancy rates 2011

Future of children's homes not so bleak after all

By Ruth Smith, head of content, on September 16, 2011 11:58 AM | No Comments

The future of local authority children's homes is not quite as bleak as is assumed. But Community Care's investigation of all mainstream children's homes owned and run by councils shows the sector is still being radically reshaped.

More than one-third of English councils no longer own or run any mainstream provision, while of the councils that still run children's homes, a third run only one or two. The private and independent sectors provide the majority of provision. But small, independent children's homes warn they are being forced out of the market as councils seek to reduce costs and buy beds in bulk.

The need for a strong voice to represent the sector is needed more than ever before. That is why all children's home providers should support the creation of an independently-funded National Centre for English Residential Child Care. This would share information and good practice, but most of all champion the benefits of children's homes.

Children's homes may be expensive, but research shows they can save money in the longer term and for some children should always be the first-choice option.
In the rush to save money, we must not lose the expertise and specialist provision that has been built up. More importantly, any decision to close a home must start from the needs of children who deserve stability from the state that cares for them.
Children's homes special report

Workforce must be better planned

By Bronagh Miskelly, Group Editor on September 5, 2011 4:48 PM | No Comments

Workforce planning for social work is woefully inadequate. This is the only conclusion to be reached on reading a study on social worker retention levels in the British Journal of Social Work or considering the unemployment rates of newly qualified professionals.

The BJSW study found that, on average, social workers stay in the profession for only eight years compared with 16 for nurses and 24 for physio-therapists. Although initial training costs for these groups are similar, the truncated social work careers mean that training and support costs for this group per working year are more than three times that of the other two.

The study's authors recommend a shift in spending from training new social workers to retaining the ones we already have. If only it were that simple. Training social workers is an education issue and retaining them the employers' problem and it can seem that never the twain shall meet, which is why we require a significant overhaul of workforce planning.

We need a holistic view to identify the right investment to keep social workers in the sector longer, whether that be a need for more staff to reduce caseloads or better career progression.

Only when we have a plan and predictions for workforce change can accurate assessment be made on cutting social work degree places. But this will need investment to first make the assessment and then to make the changes, which means the politically unpopular result of short-term costs for long-term gains.