by Allan Norman
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident."
(Sherlock Holmes in ‘Silver Blaze’, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The Independent Asylum Commission has punched above its weight. Asked to address it, I tried to find out more about what it was. It was plainly not a statutory enquiry. Nor was it an initiative of a national charity. It appears that it originated in relatively obscure local citizens groups, ironically likely to be less known to the public than the commission they created – more power to their elbow!
I was mesmerised and moved when Radio 4’s Today programme, reporting on the commission findings, gave over several minutes to back-to-back first hand testimony from asylum seekers of their experiences in this country (The hearings were published on Human Rights TV). There was nothing in what they said that surprised me, as I work extensively with this group. Rather, it was the fact that their voices were being listened to in this prominent national context.
I reviewed the final report for the contribution of social work to the commission. If it was there, it was obscured, so that I could not find it. I spoke recently at a conference on asylum and infant mortality organised because a local NHS trust was exercised by the rate at which their children are dying. The local social services authority was not represented.
But then, neither did I address the Independent Asylum Commission.
Is social work under New Labour, as Paul Stepney suggests in British Journal of Social Work 2006 36(8):1289-1307, politically compromised and compliant: ‘the dog that didn’t bark’ even when its soul appeared to be stripped out”?
Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot, an independent law firm and social work practice.
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