Profit cannot dictate policy

While we now have an almighty row over the government’s
plan to use private firms to run public services, there was hardly
a murmur when the previous Conservative government opened up the
doors for the same to happen in social care.

The reason was simple: the voluntary sector had its reputation
protected by old-fashioned images of charitable organisations
doling out alms.

When ministers spoke of reducing the role of the statutory
sector in social care service delivery, they did not mention
money-making firms – they talked of the independent sector,
including voluntary org-anisations. The same voluntary
organisations that many in social services had forged links with
since the 1980s.

The result was that arguments over whether money should be made
from providing care services were muted.

However, now, by suggesting allowing private firms to make money
out of people’s illness and children’s education,
Labour leaders have raised fresh questions over the role of private
firms in public services.

And it is clear it’s not just private sector money the
government is playing for – it is the private sector mentality –
drive, efficiency, and above all, results – that it wants a piece
of.

The government’s agenda for social care will see more
services being delivered outside the traditional local authority
structure. Partnership means contracting out more services to the
independent sector.

But social care voluntary organisations – whatever their
individual strengths – do not have a reputation for go-getting. And
this could reduce their survival rate in the increasingly
commercialised world of public services. That could open up new
opportunities for private companies.

The best private providers are innovating in areas such as the
care of severely damaged children, where the public sector has
receded. The public sector should stop suspecting their motives.
But the public sector is where services take direction, shaped by
local needs and accountability.


Blow the whistle

Social care staff have a responsibility to their clients which
goes beyond meeting a set of assessed needs. They should also do
whatever lies in their power to protect them from harm. The fact
that this duty of protection has been over-looked so often in
social care is hardly mitigated by corresponding failures in the
medical and nursing professions.

So the decision to include a duty to blow the whistle on
malpractice by colleagues in the General Social Care
Council’s code of conduct is to be welcomed. Social care
training necessarily places much more emphasis on the recognition
of oppressive practice than used to be the case and there is every
reason for staff to be as vigilant in regard to colleagues’
practice as they are to their own.

But it is also important that this duty is accompanied by proper
safeguards. Sacking staff for blowing the whistle may have been
outlawed, but the outdated attitudes among employers which allowed
this kind of thing to happen have not been eradicated.

In some localities, the culture of victimisation is alive and
well. Employees who do their duty must themselves be adequately
protected.

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