The government has this morning pledged to spend £23m to reduce pressure on frontline social workers, £15m to improve IT systems and £10m to help Cafcass tackle its backlog of cases.
You can read the full story here. What do you think of the government's plans?
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Is this genuinely new money, or a rehash of funding previously announced (an archetypal Brown ploy)?
Is the money ring-fenced, or can it be "spirited-away" to cushion some cuts elsewhere?
It's not completely clear at the moment. The £23m for frontline social work is certainly new, although it appears that the Cafcass and ICS money may have been announced previously. In terms of the ringfence, we'll have to look into it...
News update: the Cafcass money is new, we have been told
Lucky old CAFCASS but not so luckly old frontline.
According to Wikipedia (so it must be true) there are 354 local authorities, so this extra 23 million amounts to £65,000 or the equivalent of two extra social workers per LA.
Not too much to get excited about I'm afraid.
Dear Grinch,
Only just over 150 are Social Services authorities, so that must be nearly 5 SWs each
As someone involved in the placement of Social Work students I would be intrested to see the proposal for the reduction in placement days from 200 to 130. Its a substantial piece of work all of which is important. How will reducing practical exprience time improve the service.
caiocesca: Dear Grinch, Only just over 150 are Social Services authorities, so that must be nearly 5 SWs each
So there are, thank you!
Still, I hate to be all grinchy about it but that would equate to one extra sw per team in my own authority. Seriously, they wouldn't even notice the difference.
One extra administrator per team could make a bit of difference in terms of face to face time with service users. I like the fact that this is apparently going to be open to local implementation rather than being overly prescriptive in how the money is spent. I'm not convinced that any amount of money is going to solve the problem of ICS so that might be another 15m down the drain.
Whilst reading the report as a social worker who works directly with families I didn't feel either safe or confident about the future of UK social work. I also couldn't believe the welcoming of this report, as reported by CC, from so-called sector leaders (they certainly don't lead me even as they may be thinking about their careers). Instead, I recalled a movie phrase from more than 30 years ago: I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
In exasperation at this government's ongoing attempt to murder social work (cf. Sue Miller's 'Death of a Social Worker') via target-setting, data-inputting, regulation and dictatorial management I plead with colleagues to end our compliance with their efforts. Just compare the definition of social work within this report to the international definition of social work. I can find no evidence that this report's implementation will lead social work in the direction of compassionate, ethical and systemic practice - the social work that I believe in. This report is about 'taking action' rather than 'doing something' (Hannah Arendt's distinction), as only government rather than the governed can offer. There are alternative visions for public sector social work e.g. SWAN on the left and John Seddon on the right.
This government's betrayal of the people who need them most has seemed tragic. The spending of £150 trillion pounds (BBC news) to shore up what appears to be a corrupt and failing financial sector is IMO child abuse - our children and grandchildren will have to pay for our generation's wealth for decades to come. Our profession and sector ought to feel insulted by the peanuts offered in this report - £48m wouldn't even buy one RAF fighter aircraft. As for the £15m to improve IT - can a computer visit a family and listen to a child? I believe that compassionate, ethical and systemic social work has been betrayed in this report and has no future with this government.
It's time for us to end their betrayal and it's time to help get rid of them. Stupid and futile maybe, but I cannot believe in their vision of social work.
The money the Government 'gave' to local authorities for Dementia Care wasn't ring-fenced, neither does the Government appear to have required any form of reporting from local authorities on how it was spent! How can we know this pledge won't go the same way as other non 'ring-fenced' funding?
Marbles78: One extra administrator per team could make a bit of difference in terms of face to face time with service users.
One extra administrator per team could make a bit of difference in terms of face to face time with service users.
That's a good point.
There are many tasks undertaken by SWs that absolutely don't have to be - e.g. booking taxis, supervising contacts, taking minutes - so investing money in extra administrative support may actually be more fruitful.
Off to read Mills and Boon more realistic than the suggestion that we are getting anything, so tired I just need sleep
Crispycakes