Social work in the 2000s: New Labour’s focus on performance management

By Ray Jones

This article on social work in the 2000s is the fourth in a five-part series by Professor Ray Jones for Community Care’s 50th anniversary. Each part looks back at key events from the previous five decades that have shaped the social work sector today. His previous pieces covered the legacy of the Maria Colwell inquiry in 1974, the birth of the divide between adults’ and children’s services in the 1980s and the impact of the disability movement in the 1990s.

There may be a sense of déjà vu as 2024 heralds a new Labour government after 14 years of Conservative political control. There are memories of 1997 and the ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ slogan after 17 years of Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

So what was the impact on social work from the administration that took the UK into the new millennium and governed its first decade?

After the marginalisation and neglect of public services during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was the aspiration and expectation of a new era for the public sector and those who used public services.

Photo by Ray Jones

But while Labour valued and recognised the importance of public services, it came into government with the view that services needed to be modernised. Many Labour MPs had been local councillors and were not enamoured with their experience. They had energy and commitment, and were on a mission.

New focus on performance monitoring

Thatcher’s focus on ‘value for money’ was replaced by Labour’s assessment of ‘best value’, with a wider focus on areas such as community engagement and impact.

Labour also introduced a new toolkit of means and mechanisms, such as more performance monitoring and public reporting, to drive change across public services, including those run by local government. And some of it was pretty bruising.

Children’s and adults’ social services were both within the remit of the Department of Health and, initially, of social services minister Paul Boateng.

Within months of the election, according to a Community Care article published in 1997, Boateng revealed his intention “to get tough with local authorities with plans to send hit squads of management consultants into social services departments deemed to be failing”.

Photo by Ray Jones

As Community Care noted at the time, this pledge had “done little to boost morale among social care workers”.

Other levers to promote performance within social services included the creation of performance indicators, generating published league tables and star ratings, with health secretary Alan Milburn naming, shaming and blaming those councils deemed to be the poorest performers.

Alongside the bullish audit culture of performance measurement, there was an emphasis on external reviews and inspection. An example was the joint reviews undertaken by combined teams from the Department of Health and the Audit Commission, where reviewers would spend four to five weeks within each local authority in England and Wales.

The local authorities that received a negative and critical judgment attracted the most media coverage. Then, as now, bad news trumped the good.

Efforts to improve children’s lives

However, alongside this harsh approach to performance, Labour – after a slow start – increased investment, both in the process of supporting change and in new policies and programmes, including to tackle poverty.

It had some success – child poverty fell from 26% to 18% from 1998-2010, driven by increased spending on benefits and tax credits (source: DWP).

In children’s services, Labour invested in a national improvement programme, called ‘Quality Protects’, with regional teams working alongside social services departments to implement new practice guidance and meet targets on areas such as the health, placement stability and educational attainment of children in care.

Photo by Ray Jones

It marked the beginning of government policy’s focus on outcomes. The programme also introduced the concept of ‘corporate parenting’, which required councils to provide “the kind of support any good parent would for their own children”, including enhancing their quality of life and ensuring their safety.

The impact of Sure Start

In 1999, Labour launched the flagship Sure Start programme, which provided parents with safe spaces, resources and support for the early years of their children’s development.

According to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, access to a Sure Start centre for children aged 0-5 improved educational achievement at GCSE, with particularly positive effects for poorer children.

Sure Start also contributed to reducing hospitalisation rates among children and young people and improving the wellbeing of mothers.

However, funding was cut by the coalition government, resulting in 1,416 centres closing from 2010-23.

There was also the introduction of Every Child Matters, Labour’s agenda to join up services in order to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of children.

This was also largely dismantled by the coalition but parts of its legacy remain. For example, we still have the role of Children’s Commissioner for England to act as a watchdog for the country’s children, as well as the formal separation of children’s and adults’ services enshrined in the Children Act 2004.

Structural changes

Photo by Ray Jones

A new infrastructure for monitoring and supporting social care was introduced in England, and largely copied in the devolved nations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This comprised a national inspectorate (initially, the National Care Standards Commission), a national regulator for social workers (the General Social Care Council) and a body to develop the workforce (Skills for Care). Social work became a graduate profession and practitioners were required to be registered to maintain their right to practise.

There was also the advent of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) to harness and promote the knowledge base for social work and social care.

The titles and organisational arrangements have changed  – the NCSC’s functions are now within Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and Social Work England now has the functions of the GSCC – but the infrastructure introduced in the early 2000s substantially continues today.

So does the focus on inspections, audits, performance indicators and measurement. The changes introduced into the noughties were then a source of debate about how to improve performance but not skew and blinker practice and management.

It is a concern and a debate which continues today.