Haringey - only limited progress since Baby P

That's the pretty damning verdict of a re-inspection of safeguarding services - ordered by the government - published today.

The quality of frontline social work practice and management were two of the key areas where progress - according to inspectors from Ofsted and other regulators - has been "limited".

Vacancies and staff sick leave, suspensions/dismissals (linked to the Baby P case) etc have also been identified as problems, with agency and interim staff in post at senior management level and below.

 

• Filed under: Ofsted, safeguarding, Haringey, Baby P

It makes me think - is it realistic to expect significant progress in just six months?

What in the world do they expect after all the bad publicity??? I take my hat off to the brave people still working for Haringey, I think must be mad or very committed (or a mixture of both I suspect). I don't think people actually have an understanding of what having a high workload means and how it affects the workers, particularly in Child Protection. I also don't think the public understands what having a high vacancy and turnover rate means in terms of day to day management of the work and for the professional relationship with the service user. Thank God at least the inspectors consider to have a discussion whether it is realistic to expect those poor people to manage such a high amount of work and maybe reconsider the size of the teams. I would surely welcome one of these exercises in my team! It is interesting that they made a comment about the quality of staff - not sure what they mean. I am curious whether they mean inexperienced or incompetent - there is a difference. It is very easy to point fingers, which is what they are still doing funnily enough! I haven't heard yet much about how the Government expects the Council to motivate social workers to consider a job at Haringey or what they offered to improve the situation.

simeon2:

It makes me think - is it realistic to expect significant progress in just six months?

No. But its what Ed Balls and politicians of his ilk want to pretend is possible. Its easy to rant, and to sack Shoesmith, and its gets you good headlines in the media. But its by no means so easy to change things around; I suspect that Balls hopes it will quietly go away and so avoid his being held to account.

 

 I don't suppose Ofsted might have said the whole approach had been detrimental towards child safeguarding. With every wish to be transparent, getting things sorted will take time and cannot guarantee aagainst any future system failure. Low profile contact with inspectors all the time to monitor progress may be more helpful than any kind of periodic spot check.