March 2011 Archives

It looks like the proposal to bring forward implementation of the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) for social work graduates in England was optimistic, to say the least.

Last year, the Social Work Reform Board asked Skills for Care and the Children's Workforce Development Council to look at options for rolling out the assessed year from as early as 2012. Then it all went a bit quiet, presumably because they were bevearing away at developing said options.

However, recently-published minutes from the board's January meeting show there is still a lot of work to be done.

Rebecca Leete, national programme manager for social work at the Children's Workforce Development Council, told the board that future options for delivery of the ASYE would require legislation, meaning that the government and regulator need to agree there is a sufficient case for change.

This was echoed by Anne Mercer from the Joint Social Work Unit, who underlined the need for a "full business case" before any decisions were made.

A discussion ensued. How will the changes affect current students? Would it be better to begin with a voluntary scheme? What would a "pre-reg" social worker be able to do?

The board asked its careers working group to provide an in-depth analysis on the AYSE at its next meeting, which actually took place earlier this month. The results of the analysis have not yet been released to the public.

In a House of Commons debate on the Health and Social Care Bill on Tuesday, care services minister Paul Burstow said: "We would not rule out making changes to the regulation of social workers in England to implement the assessed and supported year in employment if there was a clear case for doing so.

"We are asking the board to do that work and make such a case if it thinks it appropriate."

SETTLE DOWN CLASS! You at the back - stop talking. Now everyone, first question in the session on social work:

Hands up who knows what a professional capabilities framework is?

How about the theory of critical reflection?

And what can you tell me about the importance of operating effectively within organisational frameworks?

OK, apart from the tumbleweeds blowing across the room, you're still with me, right?

These are the type of questions kids will be faced with if they open up the Social Work Reform Board's questionnaire for children and young people who come into contact with social workers.

The reform board is asking young people to respond with their views on the latest proposals to improve the social work profession.

Social work staff at Scottish Borders Council will soon have access to three electric cars for home visits, the Berwickshire News reports. The average running cost of an electric car is 3p per mile, compared to 40p for normal cars.

Photo by frankh on flickr

What's in a name? Some might say the leadership of the regulator taking over social work in England next year is the biggest issue at stake.

But the proposal to change the name of the Health Professions Council is already being hotly contested.

The government has said it should become the Health and Care Professions Council, to reflect its new remit when it takes over from the General Social Care Council.

This decision, outlined in the Health and Social Care Bill, has been rejected as "absurd" by BASW - the College of Social Work, led by Hilton Dawson (pictured).

Their preferred title? The Social Work and Health Professions Council. 

The College of Social Work is inviting practitioners to submit their views on the government's consultation to cut back on statutory council duties.

As reported in Community Care, the Department for Communities and Local Government is considering ways of reducing the "unnecessary burdens or restrictions on local authorities", including their social work duties.

MPs and social work leaders have raised serious concerns about the impact of potential changes on the sector, and the College is planning to produce a collective response to the consultation. It wants prospective members, of which there are currently 4.600, to respond by 18 April, in time for the final deadline of 25 April.

Questions may be asked about the timing of the College's decision to respond to a consultation which began nearly three weeks ago, on 7 March. However, a policy development group is being set up, to be headed by College members. A spokesperson says that in future, this group will coordinate thorough responses to similar consultations.

Here's a little something to amuse people ahead of the rally on Saturday...

 So... the big march/rally approaches.

March for the Alternative, which kicks off at 11am in London's Victoria Embankment and culminates in a rally in Hyde Park at 1:30pm, was organised to oppose cuts to public services. And, according to sources including this thread on CareSpace, quite a few social care workers will be there. I and my esteemed workforce colleague Daniel Lombard will be there, Tweeting, reporting, taking photos and filming. Technology willing. So if you don't fancy heading down for a bit of kettling (joke - I'm sure it will be very peaceful), you can find out what it was like in the following ways:

On the day:

Follow us on Twitter @ComCareWork. Don't forget to use the #26March hashtag

Full coverage next week:

We'll have photos, videos and news from the rally on www.communitycare.co.uk and in next week's magazine.

Tomorrow's Budget will be an opportunity to judge the government's understanding of the gap between ambition and reality when it comes to outsourcing social work and other services to employee-led mutuals, writes Dan Gregory on ResPublica.

Gregory argues that social enterprises and other forms of mutuals are "simply not on the menu" for public sector leaders at the moment - but they could be, if policy makers understand what is really going on at the front line. Read the full blog post

Photo by Rex Features

A white social worker has lost his bid to claim up to £18,000 compensation from Birmingham Council for race discrimination, the Birmingham Mail reports.

Unison Scotland and the Scottish Association of Social Work have issued guidance on how social workers can keep safe in the workplace.

The guide covers issues such as self-regulation, supervision, workload management and health and safety. It also advises social workers on what to do if they feel under stress or notice that a colleague is having difficulties.

Unison Scotland will try to convince employers to sign up to the guidance, and plans to present it to ministers.

Mandy McDowall, regional organiser for Unison, said: "We talk about trying to promote the role of social workers in a more positive light, but how can you take that forward if you don't deal with the problems on the ground?"

Penny Thompson (pictured left) has vowed that the General Social Care Council will go out "with a bang not a whimper" when it is scrapped in April next year. Speaking at the GSCC's conference, Building a stronger profession in challenging times, on Friday, the regulator's chief exec said she would produce a series of legacy reports before leaving.

Some other notes from the conference:

• The Health Professions Council will likely charge social workers in England a pro rata fee of around £63 to join its register for 10 months from April 2012. After that, the annual fee will be £76.
• HPC's chair, Anna van der Gaag (below right), also revealed they may add a strapline to the organisation's new name, so it could be called something akin to:


"Health and Care Professions Council: regulating health, psychology and social work professions"

• Van der Gaag pointed out that social workers may be able to take advantage of "disposal by consent" in the future, which means a social worker who has admitted misconduct could voluntarily resign from the register instead of going through a full hearing. Read more about disposal by consent on the HPC's website.

More than half of public sector workers would consider going on strike or taking industrial action over job cuts and changes to pensions, according to a new survey - reflecting a growing sense of frustration and anger among Community Care readers.

The poll of 1,600 workers (by totaljobs.com, reported in the Metro) found 52% would consider taking industrial action.

A separate survey by Unison and the PCS today shows almost a quarter of public sector workers are considering opting out of their pension schemes in the face of rising employee contributions.

The injustice felt by social workers and others in the public sector should prompt a good turn-out at the TUC rally in London this Saturday.

The pros and cons of taking industrial action

Photo by Rex Features

The Social Care Institute for Excellence has produced an interesting video highlighting the challenges of child protection work in an emergency duty team, including a visit to a family involved with children's services.

Will Hutton has said it's become easier to recruit a Prime Minister than to find someone to run child protection services at Haringey Council.

Speaking after the launch of his independent review of public sector pay, the economist told the Breakfast programme on BBC One:

"There's no shortage of people coming forward to be Prime Minister...if you're trying to hire someone to do child protection services in Haringey, there's almost no one on earth who wanted to do it. You have to pay to get the talent, and if you want child protection done well, you've got to pay for the skilled people to do it."

Hutton's report contains proposals to ensure pay for senior managers of public services is controlled by "stronger governance of the pay-setting process and independent assessments of performance indicators".

He has also proposed widening the pool of candidates so that public service organisations recruit from the private sector, and from other areas of public service. This idea certainly has merit and could be successful at the most senior level of, say, a chief executive of a local authority, where someone who has run a university or private company may be transferred across.

But the jury is out on whether private sector bosses could be drafted into the more specialised area of social care, which requires an in-depth understanding of the needs of communities. Look at the example of Doncaster Council, which employed a former frozen food manager as its director of children's services, and the poor performance that resulted in the Yorkshire borough, and other councils may not wish to follow suit.

Listen to the latest Community Care podcast and catch up on the latest hot topics in social care: this week, communities secretary Eric Pickles, left, comes under fire for putting safeguarding duties at risk, protests against spending cuts, and vegetarian foster carers.

The College of Social Work and the British Association of Social Workers have clashed in recent weeks after BASW decided to re-brand itself as BASW - the College of Social Work, and form a rival organisation in January.

The College of Social Work, being developed under the Social Work Reform Board, has expressed its "dismay" at the move and recent discussions have led to further agreement on certain issues. However, the BASW college still plans to go ahead and launch a trade union arm, the Social Workers Union, pending a members' ballot in May.

Here, Maurice Bates, co-chair of the College of Social Work, and Hilton Dawson, chief executive of the BASW college, debate whether or not the college should have close ties with a trade union. 

• Community Care video taken at Compass Jobs Fair, Birmingham, 7 March 2011, by Kirsty McGregor

We'll find out whether Lord Hutton thinks so tomorrow, as he unveils his final report into public sector pensions.

The former Labour cabinet minister has been asked by the government to recommend ways of ensuring the system is affordable and sustainable, and fair to both taxpayers and public sector workers.

Hutton has already recommended increasing employee contributions, and may also set out plans to raise the retirement age.

A "devious" team manager who stole nearly £9,000 worth of furniture, appliances and clothing intended for vulnerable children and families has been jailed for 28 months, the Aberdeen Press and Journal reports.

Between September 2005 and August 2008, 47-year-old Jennifer Stephen induced her Aberdeenshire Council colleagues to sign off purchase orders for a number of goods totalling £8,885, which she then had delivered to her own home.

Read Community Care's coverage of the story here

When the Greater Manchester Police used Twitter to record every incident it deals with in a 24-hour period in October last year, we discussed (semi-seriously) how a similar approach could be used to publicise the realities of frontline social work.

Well, it looks like we might get a taster tonight.

Walsall Council has launched a 24-hour Twitter feed to highlight the day-to-day tasks the authority carries out. And the council has revealed that someone based at the social care out-of-hours office will be tweeting from 10pm to 6am. So as long as you don't mind a late night...

NB: Don't forget you can follow The Social Work Blog on Twitter, too.  

Two colleges of social work are currently being developed: one with £5m of government funding, the other by the British Association of Social Workers. If both organisations continue to run in tandem, they will face a tough battle to recruit the majority of the workforce. Here, Julia Scott, chief executive of the British Association and College of Occupational Therapists explains how they went about attracting members.

"The British Association of Occupational Therapists started with an existing membership base, because it was formed in 1974 from a merger of Association of Occupational Therapists for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish Association of Occupational Therapists. It has grown to represent over 30,000 occupational therapists, technicians, support workers and students. This accounts for 75% of all Health Professions Council registered OTs.

"In much the same way as social work, occupational therapy is a broad church encompassing a wide range of skills, sectors and client groups. Some of the groupings are large and well understood; others are smaller and less visible. As a professional body we make sure their voices are heard. We push the message that occupational therapy is not just a job, but a profession. Joining the organisation enables members to become part of their professional community and we expect our members to take an active role in promoting the profession.

"All members are automatically eligible to join their nearest regional group, which gives them the opportunity to network with professionals from all areas of occupational therapy, share ideas and experiences, gain support, take part in events and campaign. This is particularly good for independent practitioners... 

We've been talking this week about creative ways to protest against public sector cuts. Protestors in Lewisham seem to be leading the way, by holding a mock funeral to "mourn the loss" of public services - complete with gravestones and a coffin.

The local paper has more details and a video of the protest. (Photo c/o the Lewisham News Shopper)

Neelam Bhardwaja, director of social services at Cardiff Council, is the only serving director from a minority ethnic background in Wales. Born in India, she moved to the UK as a teenager and went on to become the president of the Association of Directors for Social Services Cymru in 2009. Here she reflects on her personal experiences of the glass ceiling faced by many people from ethnic backgrounds aiming to gain promotion to top management jobs in social care.

"I find it disappointing that despite some very good and well meaning schemes aimed at helping managers from ethnic backgrounds to progress through the ranks, there has been very little success in achieving the desired outcome. Time and time again, it has been evidenced that managers from minority ethnic backgrounds are often far better educated, have higher qualifications and much more wide ranging experience and yet they simply do not make the grade in the interview process.

"My own journey is fascinating and an enlightening one; I was "stuck" in an authority for almost fifteen years in the first line management position often finding it difficult to even succeed in achieving sideways moves. I always performed well in interviews but somehow always lost out in being appointed, invariably to a white colleague. Yet when I left this organisation at the team manager level, within five years I succeeded in being appointed a Director of Social Services (Adults and Children) and Education in a large authority in between having held a service manager and a head of service post in two different authorities.

People are still taking part in our supervision and caseloads survey (in partnership with Unison), so we have decided to extend the deadline to 14 March.

IIt's only 10 questions long, confidential and it will help us to campaign for better working conditions for social workers.