The latest GSCC conduct case is pretty interesting. A practitioner, who worked for Rotherham, has been admonished for poor record keeping and administration i.e. not managing her files or recording case notes properly.

But the GSCC has come out and said that her failings were compounded by high caseloads and poor supervision.

It's rare to see issues for employers come out of these cases so explicitly.

So what action can we expect to be taken against Rotherham Council - or is it a rule for one and not the other?

Has the social worker's Supervisor / Team Manager been referred for investigation? And what about her Principal / Area Officer? And what about the Assistant Director / Director (or perhaps they do not even have to be registered with the GSCC!).

What a dog's dinner the whole matter of Registration is. And what an indefensible system of Registration. The GSCC should have listened to the likes of BASW at the outset - will it now stop being so utterly defensive and stop 'attcking' social workers and go after employers (Oops!!! They have no authority against employers - so what use is the Code of Practice for Employers?). I hope that the GSCC will have referred the Authority to CSCI.

As usual - little is done about high case loads and lack of support - yet it is constantly referred to as a difficulty in practice -

This is just ridiculous. There is no mention of causing harm to service users or putting them at risk which would be a professional issue. It sounds much more like something that should have been dealt with through disciplinary or other internal processes.

Another social worker dragged through the mud for no good reason and the employer gets away with poor supervision etc and not dealing with a perceived failing themselves.

Why is it always the front line workers who get hammered? The people at the top always seem to come out of it unscathed 

Do you have a link for this story anywhere?

 It sounds quite familiar to me, due to some problems I had with my last placement (hence the reason I'm not qualified yet).

 You can read the story here

Although probably not relevant in this case. The newly qualified social worker status currently being created by the government will probably help with this a bit.

It seems that the SW has been held accountable for the failings of the Local Authority- Its worth always remembering that the managers respsonsibility is to the Local Authority first and foremost not the hapless Social Worker and I include myself in that category.

Julie

One of the problems is managers changing your priorities for you, so this week they might audit your record keeping in supervision and next week it will be reviews and the week after that it will be something else. Managers can then say that the issue has been adressed, without actually having offered any support or advice on how to consitstently keep on top of everything. Priorities change constantly, according to what is on top of the performance management agenda for that particular week, and I know of very few social workers who can do all that is required of them during working hours. We are all hanging by a very thin thread, but as has been stated, the very people who allow us to keep trying to juggle impossible demands don't seem to be accountable at all.

 I think it has to be remembered that supervisors - whether they're senior pracs or team managers - also often have ridiculously high workloads too. This is not to excuse poor management , only to give contex to how some of these worst case scenarios come about. The high workloads are a result of a lack of staff which is usually the result of a lack of investment in social work which is a result of its low status. Investment in health, education and the police wins elections (and makes good television), investment in social services doesn't. Again, I'm not trying to excuse poor practice, which undoubtedly exists, but I think the problem is overwhelmingly a systemic one.

I agree that there are issues about caseloads, work-load etc (a recent report in the Guardian Society, May 21st noted that public sector and voluntary sector workers worked far more unpaid overtime and more staff were likely to work extra than the private sector, leading to approx. 60,000 jobs saved in the sector)

However, I still do think that we have got some fundamentals wrong. Staff need to know what is expected of them, have the skills to respond and decide, and have the authority to act. Most people are reasonably motivated (as above) and want to do good work. That even applies to other areas such as manufacturing. but we make work complicated, wasteful of time and energy, give inefficient services to the public, causing more waste and are bound by the continuing nonsense of compliance and inspection. We should concentrate our energy on getting it right not checking how it went wrong. The sheer numbers of back-room staff is frightening. In my authority it is estimated that maintaining Contact Point accurately will take 12-13 staff to input infotmation. Plus no doubt there would be managers and back up staff and audit for them. How effective in financial terms is this in keeping children safe? Would it be more cost-effective to employ more social workers? Or, perish the thought put the cash into preventative services or more Health Visitors for better child surveillance?

So now Essex as well as Rotherham have been found wanting - but, hey, the Directors Associations do not support BASW and UNISON's calls for tighter regulation in respect of EMPLOYERS - well, there's a real surprise!!!

I read somewhere that the directors do not believe that they need more scrutiny, because joint review type audits keep them on their toes.......................they keep all of us on our toes!

Interesting to note in an article the other day that recruitment and retention remains a problem all over the UK.