Should managers be reviewed by their staff as part of their annual appraisals?
- Yes, it would ensure accountability. (86%, 1,072 Votes)
- No, it would add to the already significant pressures on managers. (14%, 177 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,249
Loading ...From the Front Line is a new series where social workers share their experiences on various topics and running issues within the sector. To express an interest in taking part, email us at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com
Good management can be the difference between a fulfilling career in social work and practitioners being driven out of the profession.
A 2024 Community Care poll found that social workers were more likely to leave an employer over unsupportive management than pay.
The same year, professor Eileen Munro, who led the 2010-11 review of child protection in England, warned that senior management was more detached from the front line than ever.
“Once you’re away from the front line, you forget quite how chaotic and messy the reality of it is,” she said. “You get a much cleaner, more sanitised version of it. That’s dangerous.”
With high caseloads, increasingly complex needs and a shrinking pool of experienced staff, frontline social workers need to rely more than ever on their managers for guidance and support. But are they getting it?
We spoke to three practitioners about their experience with management – both at team and senior level – and the impact it has had on them.
Frontline social worker, 38, 10 years qualified
There is a huge disconnect between senior managers and frontline practitioners. I have found local authorities to be disempowering and often oppressive organisations to work for.
The style of management influences the organisational culture, although this can vary across different services within the same local authority.
In my local authority, a wellbeing survey was carried out to explore the reasons for low staff morale and recruitment and retention issues. When the poor results came back, managers seemed surprised and, rather than asking staff what the issues were and how they could be addressed, they had their own meetings to discuss what should be done. But how would they know if they don’t let us speak?
There is such a reluctance from senior management to listen to, truly understand, and address issues raised by staff. Local authorities are hierarchical – so many layers of managers – and practitioners are not routinely encouraged or invited to give feedback and suggestions and raise issues.
My team manager has openly said they feel intimidated by senior managers.”
I don’t think any manager should feel like this. All managers should be accountable to workers and service users, and we should be able to give feedback on their performance as they do on ours.
The principal social worker role is effectively meaningless in some local authorities, where the person also acts as a senior manager. They are often not approachable and don’t want to be!
I also believe all managers should carry a caseload – small but still including complex cases to reflect their higher pay. Direct work will ensure they stay in touch with the reality of social work today, understand our roles and the challenges we face, and become better managers.
Celebrate those who’ve inspired you
Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock
Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?
Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*
If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com
Social work assistant, four years of experience
As a social work assistant, I have had the opportunity to observe and interact with senior management in various capacities.
I have collaborated with managers on child in need and independent child protection conference cases and helped families with no recourse to public funds. One key initiative involved improving transport services for looked-after children to ensure efficiency while saving money for the local authority.
Working with them helped me develop a better understanding of strategic planning, professionalism and the expectations that come with leadership roles.
Generally, I have had very positive experiences with most managers and our service director. However, my experience under my current temporary team manager has been significantly different and, unfortunately, negative.
A key concern is the lack of support, which has contributed to increased anxiety and uncertainty about my job security.”
They frequently make comments, albeit in a joking manner, about taking my job away. But given their position of authority, these remarks create a genuine sense of unease.
Additionally, I have been excluded from key responsibilities, and my role within the team has been diminished.
Effective management is crucial in fostering a fair and supportive work environment. A team manager’s ability to be fair and inclusive can strengthen staff confidence and job satisfaction and enhance overall team cohesion and productivity.
Positive leadership encourages collaboration, trust and a sense of value among employees, ultimately contributing to a more engaged and high-performing team.
Organisations need to ensure that those in leadership positions, even temporary ones, are adequately trained and aligned with professional standards.
Adults’ social worker, 54, 24 years qualified
The majority of managers that I’ve worked with have had little frontline experience. While in the minority, those with more years in frontline social work have tended to be much better managers.
They can give sound advice on incredibly complex cases, where sometimes you need to have good, well-rounded, professional discussions with your manager to talk through thoughts and ideas.
However, that lack of experience in most senior management levels makes it difficult to find the level of practice knowledge needed for these conversations.
On previous occasions, I’ve had managers shut down the conversation because they felt insecure.”
This isolates the frontline worker and increases the stress and pressure around complex cases.
In one of my cases, I had been allocated an older married couple where the wife had dementia. I completed a Mental Capacity Act assessment and decided it would be best for her to go into a care home to receive the care she needed.
But the husband’s situation was much more complex. I suspected he had undiagnosed high-functioning autism. He also had cancer, which in the end was terminal, and was refusing to engage in treatment and with the appropriate care services.
I turned to my supervisor/team manager about the case. I wanted to gain some insight and hear their thoughts on autism, how to go about my assessment and the best way to move forward.
Instead, my supervisor shut down the conversation and told me that, as the social worker completing the assessment(s), the responsibility sat with me.
I have worked in a lot of local authories and, sadly, this attitude and response from managers and supervisors is very common. This has happened to me more than once with complex cases, particularly with safeguarding enquiries and mental capacity assessments.
What has been your experience with social work mentors?
We are looking for social workers to share their experiences to spark conversation among fellow practitioners. Have you had a social work mentor? How did they helped you? How was their support different to a supervisor’s?
Share your perspective through a 10-minute interview (or a few short paragraphs) to be published in Community Care. Submissions can be anonymous.
To express interest, email us at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 
Hampshire County Council 
Oxfordshire County Council 
South Gloucestershire Council 
Wokingham Borough Council 
Embedding learning in social work teams through a multi-agency approach 
The family safeguarding approach: 5 years on 
Harnessing social work values to shape your career pathway 
Webinar: building a practice framework with the influence of practitioner voice 
Workforce Insights – showcasing a selection of the sector’s top recruiters 
Free CPD on Parkinson’s for health and social care staff 
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Instagram
In any normal conversation a person not wanting to undergo cancer treatment wouldn’t be labelled as “refusing to engage in treatment”. We just assume that people have their own agency to make decisions about their own medical treatment. What changes when a person happens to be in contact with a social worker to undermine that? If I was the manager that’s where I would have started. I don’t have a particular regard for my current or past managers but I do think discussion or no discussion, advice or no advice, guidance or no guidance social workers do own the responsibility for their assessments.
Anita I get the sense that there was a lot more to this case than what was briefly summaries in the article. Yes, you are right, the assessing social worker is responsible for their assessments and recommendations. But this does not mean that supervisors and managers, who are registered with Social Work England, are removed from all involvement and absolved from all responsibility.
The Professional standard 3.2 states we need to use information from a range of appropriate sources, including supervision, to inform assessments, to analyse risk, and to make a professional decision. 4.5 That we all need to contribute to an open and creative learning culture in the workplace to discuss, reflect on and share best practice.
Even the Care Act 2014 makes it clear the Principle of Partnership is an overarching approach, and the Principle of Accountability is everyone involved duty and everyone involved should take some accountability for this. Therefore this does includes all supervisors and managers who read, give case guidance and instructions, authorise and sign off on the social workers assessments. Alongside this, the courts have given guidance around unwise decision making and that it is not used inappropriately under the guise of Person Centered Practice.
Sadly I have found most of the managers and supervisor I have worked with either have very little understanding for the professional standards and care act principles and how they apply to them in their roles or they choose to completely ignore them or believe they don’t apply to them. This is one of the main reason’s I have left the profession.
The problem with social work is that it likes to think that to be a profession it needs to top load everything with “standards”, “guidance” and “regulations”. The belief that regimenting practice makes it safe is the biggest con perpetuated on social workers themselves and the wider public. I have yet to meet any practitioner who in reality knows what’s an “unwise decision” from that of exercising power over people they have a fleeting contact with. Personally I find empathy works better.
Anita, I completely agree with you about empathy and it being so valuable to good social work practice. But unfortunitly I have worked with to many supervisors and managers that have very little in the way of empathy and compassion. I wish whole heartedly it was different, but it is not. Therefore guidance, regulation etc end up being the rather unsatisfactory next best thing.
I agree with Chloe.
Unison in Lancashire have recently produced a report that reiterates exactly what this article states. Its an excellent document that quotes workers experiences. But I’m sure these experiences are across the country, as senior managers regularly move around as they ruin one local authority, they move to another by using their CV to say what a wonderful job they did (and many overpaid for it!) but in reality leave the previous authority in chaos and frontline workers/managers tearing their hair out. No increase in Council Tax or Government funding will change this situation sadly, just more bad decisions and poor customer outcomes. So glad I got out of the cesspit but pity I might need such an organisation in the future
Goodwill working on the part of Social Workers is welcomed by managers as this assists with them achieving their own targets and thereby career ambitions, bonuses. But the reliance on goodwill working is exploitation and this is contrary to social work values
I am 13 years in and totally agree that most ( In my opinion) Senior Managers and some Team Managers are out of touch.
If you raise an issue about workload, it is your fault, if a client complains , it is your fault, you cannot be your authentic self, not allowed to express opinions, they know best!!! Love Social work but hate the office politics, blame culture, if you speak up you are classed as a trouble maker, then you are ostracised by managers and in the worst case get moved to another team or quadrant. don’t even start on Ethics, Values, Professional standards – Open, Honest , Transparent -does not exist.
As social workers we can’t really have it both ways. We say were are autonomous practitioners guided by values and ethics but also accuse managers of not taking more responsibility over us and our work. Self reflection is a better way than this constant “my manager doesn’t understand me” narrative.
I have been employed by several organizations and have witnessed the devastating effects of ostracism on individuals. It’s not just about missing records or emails; it involves betrayal from trusted colleagues and work friends. I once observed someone accessing a colleague’s computer account and deleting emails from their Outlook while we helplessly watched. The issues extend to scapegoating, smear campaigns, and nepotism, often fueled by senior management instructing HR to act according to their wishes.
Whistleblowing policies serve merely as reporting mechanisms for internal issues within the organization, leading to investigations and potential referrals to regulators. Be cautious when directing concerns to union officials, particularly those who have self-appointed themselves within the same service.
It’s crucial to save supervision records as PDFs and keep printed copies at home. It’s equally important to thoroughly understand your work policies to develop your own comprehension of the environment you are in.
This knowledge should be a fundamental lesson in social work training. I wish I had known what I know now and had seen these issues before beginning my career in this field, rather than starting out with naïve, rosy views of wanting to work alongside others to improve their lives.
The old adage, “if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen,” applies in all scenarios. Documentation is essential, as relying solely on electronic devices can lead to blocked accounts and corrupted files.
All of this is especially pertinent before professional regulators become involved, particularly when you have to manage bills, a mortgage, and family responsibilities outside of work as welcome to the moral void.
In SW for about 17 years. 2 months ago decided to step down from senior management in a SW role on basic locum pay to re-acquaint myself with the paradigm on the ground. Could write a book. Have re-acquired an immense respect for SWs. Never lost it but it became distant and secondary.
My take on it is this: in 7 working days, I’m leaving the profession for good and forever. Feels like retirement ! That’s all I can offer as an insight. This silly circus can no longer be stomached.
My Best.
So a manager who allocate cases, perhaps also supervise the caseload of a social worker also doesn’t understand the pressures of working in the front line? The person who struggles to get clear communication with a social worker practically permanently working from home isn’t stressed? Social workers may moan about the impossibility of working effectively because of high case loads should take a moment to reflect the impact on a manager responsible for the caseload of a whole team. So I think social workers need a bit more perspective when rubbishing managers. If you want to blame managers for not making your jobs easier you are looking at the wrong picture. Personally I think there are too many third rate under qualified faux psychotherapists infecting social work discourse. Too many self appointed champions of social workers, hello BASW, too many self satisfied heroes who think handing out environmentally unfriendly future landfill awards is “Celebrating Excellence in Social Work”. I’m no friend of bureaucratic management but nor am I a fan of ill judged pops at managers. Ever seen a manager cry uncontrollably because they can’t gatekeep anymore? I have. Social workers would do themselves a huge favour reminding themselves that their managers are also workers.
I have had the very best and very worst of managers in my 13 years in Childrens social care. The difference between them was not what pressures they were under themselves, or issues of having to meet unrealistic targets. It was a sound understanding of what it means and looks like to be compassionate, empathic, supportive and encouraging. How do I know they were the best or the worst? Well, other practitioners still rave about our best ever manager, whilst the worst drove newly qualified staff from the profession in tears and ended up being sent off to somewhere safe away from other humans.
My experience is that it’s not about individuals and their role responsibilities, it’s about the culture in local authorities. And this culture is engendered my Ofsted and the fear LA’s have of them. This leads to oppressive work expectations.
Now that I work in the NHS, which is not perfect, I can see how important openly stated NHS values are to the workforce. Good people hold them in mind and practice deliberately with those values but LA’s don’t have the same foundations, even if social work does.
And I agree, there are too many governing bodies in social work making everything complicated and multi-layered. Needs to be simplified, like having the NMC only for nursing.
Most managers are accidental managers, with little experiencing in managing or leading people. Many of them lack knowledge of law, legislation and the values and ethics of our profession, and they don’t know how to balance the needs of service users with the demands of the organisation. Social work managers should be subject to much more scrutiny than they are, because ultimately their team depends upon them and looks to them for advice and guidance.
Social workers would do themselves a big favour by being a bit more specific about what they mean by a manager. I have never had a team manager who isn’t a qualified and registered social worker. So the claim that they lack an understanding of law and the ethics and values would only stand up if all qualified and registered social workers lacked that too. Actually maybe we do given that in 22 years of post qualifying practice I’ve yet to hear from a social worker that they didn’t fall into social work by accident. Not one has been able to say “on this day I realised my dream was to be a social worker and I went out and became one”. Most social workers, me included, drifted through humanities degrees at University not knowing if we were going to be teachers, statisticians or go on to do psychology degrees rather than become social workers. Or like my partner did a series of retail jobs then became a care worker who realised they were doing a far better job than the qualified social workers and thought I’ll have that salary too and trained to become one. Positives can come from negatives but most social workers and occasionally me also, love to wallow in what we perceive as the burdens of being a social worker. We convince ourselves that the public misunderstand us, governments can’t wait to punish us, the media perpetually victimises us, we work hardest in our team, our managers are useless careerists and that we are more exhausted than child labourers around the world. Social work is hard and it takes its toll but we are not the walking dead we’d like to believe we are. In my experience it’s not managers who shut down conversations. It’s fellow social workers who get incandescent if anyone dares to challenge the group think orthodoxy that they’ve decided is what makes a social worker. Uncomfortable truths don’t sit well with social workers these days so of course managers become the scapegoats. Misery is also a currency it seems.
“We are not the walking dead we’d like to believe we are”. That brightened up a dull bus journey. True too.