Children's secretary Ed Balls has accused social workers of of "barking up the wrong tree" when they blame excessive bureaucracy for keeping them away from the front line.
At the National Children and Adult Services Conference just now Balls was asked by a member of the audience whether he was going to stand back and stop imposing "heavy handed, bureaucratic responses" on social workers, which stop them spending time on the front line.
Balls said that idea that you would use record keeping as an excuse for not going out on frontline was "really barking up the wrong tree".
But he was slammed by Hilton Dawson, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, who said Balls' response "won't do".
"This is not an issue about good case work recording and good practice," said Dawson.
News story to follow.
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