PDF version
The government has set out how it plans to transform social work in England.
Building a Safe and Confident Future: implementing the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force contains numerous recommendations.
Children’s social work teams across England will receive £48m in 2010-11 to transform conditions on the frontline.
The funding includes £23m to help reduce pressure on frontline workers, £15m to improve IT systems and £10m to help Cafcass tackle the backlog of cases.
It means that ministers have pledged a total of £200m for adult and children’s social work in England for 2010-11.
An independent college of social work will be established by March 2011, with an interim chair appointed by June and a full interim board in place by September.
National indicators for vacancy and turnover rates in children's services will be introduced to improve the regulation and supply of social work.
Employers will be urged to carry out "health checks" on social workers' working conditions over the next 12 months.
A new standard covering workload management and supervision should then be rolled out from 2011 alongside the development of an improved career structure for social work.
The government has stalled on making a decision on cutting the length of social work students' practice placements from 200 to 130 days.
The Social Work Task Force said consideration should be given to reducing placement lengths - but a decision on such a move will not be taken until a review of the degree curriculum which will form the basis for social work courses in 2012.
Meanwhile, the government has scrapped a key recommendation made by Lord Laming after the death of Baby P after the LGA said it would need 6,000 extra social workers to implement it.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/static-pages/articles/social-work-task-fo...
The Secretary of State for Health (Andy Burnham): With my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Children, Schools and Families, and Business, Innovation and Skills, I am publishing today “Building a Safe and Confident Future: Implementing the Recommendations of the Social Work Task Force”. In December 2009, the social work taskforce made 15 focused recommendations for the fundamental reform of the system that supports social workers in England. This publication sets out how the Government are working with employers, higher education institutions, the profession itself and people who use social work services to put those recommendations into effect.
Every day high-quality social work makes a big difference, not only to the safety, prospects and life chances of individuals, but also to the stability and equality of our society. It is therefore essential that the right support and systems are in place to enable social workers to practise to the highest professional standards.
“Building a Safe and Confident Future” sets out a route map for how the taskforce’s recommendations will be achieved over the next five to 10 years. Some of the changes recommended by the taskforce can and must make a difference immediately. Other taskforce recommendations will require extensive consultation and require time to put in place. “Building a Safe and Confident Future” sets out the anticipated time scales for implementing all of these recommendations, including:
work already under way in establishing the independent College of Social Work with the recruitment process for an interim chair to begin this month and the expectation that the college will be a fully functioning independent organisation by April 2011;
the expectation that over the coming year all social worker employers will work with their staff to conduct a local “health check” of the support they have in place, and to take action for improvement where necessary;
improvements to initial social worker education with strengthened entry requirements to the social work degree;
reviews of the degree curriculum, bursary arrangement and the quality and quantity of practice placements, and more transparent and improved regulation of higher education providers;
consultation and assessment of options and impact for the introduction of the recommended assessed year in employment and licence to practise; and
consultation on a new framework for continuing professional development in social work beginning in summer 2010 with the framework to be phased in from 2011.
The reform programme will require sustained commitment from all partners over a number of years. To establish the firmest possible foundation for this, “Building a Safe and Confident Future” is accompanied by a commitment to Government investment of more than £200 million in 2010–11. This investment is additional to core funding for social work in higher education, local government and the NHS. It will be used to support recruitment, student bursaries and practice placements, work force development, improvement of IT in children’s services and supporting employers to remodel services.
In recognition of particular pressures on local authority children’s services, £23 million of Government’s £200 million investment in social work next year will go directly to LAs to put in place local solutions which help to reduce pressure on front-line social workers and will build capacity for reform and improvement. Local authorities will be expected to consult with social workers and local safeguarding partners in deciding how to use it. This will be accompanied by a £15 million capital grant from DCSF to local authorities for the improvement of information technology systems, including the Integrated Children’s System.
We are placing a copy of “Building a Safe and Confident Future: Implementing the Recommendations of the Social Work Task Force” in the Library and copies are available for hon. Members from the Vote Office.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmtoday/cmwms/archive/100317...
An extra £23m is to be put into front-line social work, Children's Secretary Ed Balls has announced.
Summaries of official inquiries into the most serious cases of child abuse in England will be clearer, he added.
These were part of a package of measures he unveiled, a year after Lord Laming's review into child protection in the aftermath of the Baby P case.
But the Conservatives said Serious Case Reviews should be published in full and Mr Balls's response was "inadequate".
The children's secretary was also warned by a government adviser in a new report that a shortage of funding could put children at risk.
The £23m will go into a new social improvement fund to reduce pressure on front-line social workers.
There will also be £15m to improve IT systems in local areas.
Local authorities will decide how to spend the extra money.
Speaking at a family centre in Wandsworth, London, Mr Balls said: "I think when people look at the progress we have made they will agree that we are in a much better place than we were. There is still a long way to go."
 |
 I won't be proposing any changes that will undermine child protection and the social work agenda 
Children's Secretary Ed Balls
|
He said executive summaries of Serious Case Reviews (SCRs) will be fuller and explain what action has been taken but the findings will not be published in full.
Serious case reviews are inquiries into the death or serious injury of a child where abuse or neglect is known to be a factor.
Mr Balls said the reports into such cases as those in Doncaster and Edlington had paid too much attention to the "lessons learned" and not enough on setting out clearly what had happened.
Shadow education secretary Michael Gove said: "We have to learn all the lessons from child deaths to ensure child safety in future. Ed Balls's response is inadequate and he is in denial about the scale of the problem."
He said the government had to be more open by publishing findings in full to restore public confidence.
Funding concerns
Also at the family centre was the government's independent adviser on the safety of children Sir Roger Singleton, who in his first annual report published today has expressed concern about future public spending cuts.
He warned in the report: "If these reductions fall on child protection and safeguarding budgets within various organisations, the capacity for relevant services to keep children safe will inevitably be diminished."
Responding to this concern, Mr Balls said: "I won't be proposing any changes that will undermine child protection and the social work agenda."
But he said he could not give any assurances for after 2011 and he could not "give comfort" on what the spending review would decide or what local authorities would do on levels of council tax.
Sir Roger told BBC
News: "All parties have to step up to the plate on funding. Both national and local politicians need to ask what priority they are going to attach to this."
He stressed that while high profile cases hit the headlines it was important to remember the good work being done by agencies to protect children.
"There are deeply disturbing cases and it is right that they are exposed but we have between 30,000-40,000 children on child protection plans who are being kept safe."
"I am not trying to justify the indefensible where children have been abused or have died but we should present the picture in the round."
Social worker vacancies
Mr Balls was keen to point out that there had been 50,000 inquiries from people interested in going into social work since last September.
But there are still 5,000 vacancies in children's social work in England waiting to be filled.
Lord Laming welcomed the government's announcements a year on from when he made 58 recommendations for improving children's services in England in the wake of the Baby Peter case.
He said today's funding announcement for social work marked a "major landmark in the recruitment of front-line staff".
Lord Laming's review was commissioned by the government after the failure of social workers in the London borough of Haringey to prevent the abuse and death of 17-month-old Baby Peter.
His report last year said too many authorities had failed to adopt reforms introduced after the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in February 2000.
The government also announced plans to implement recommendations made by its social work taskforce in December to transform the profession.
These include creating a national college for social work and changing the structure of the profession to keep more experienced staff on the front line.
A joint implementation plan from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Department of Health and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in partnership with the Social Work Reform Board.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_114252
A 10-month-old baby boy is believed to have starved to death in north-west London despite being monitored by doctors and social workers.
The child, whose family was in contact with at least nine NHS professionals, was found dead in a flat on 8 March.
His 29-year-old mother died of an illness two days later. A serious case review has begun into the family's care
Westminster Council said there was "no suggestion" the boy had been "at risk of harm from neglect or abuse".
The boy is believed to have had serious developmental issues, an underlying serious health condition and had a history of being underweight.
A post-mortem examination could not absolutely establish the cause of the boy's death, Metropolitan Police said.
Westminster Council said the boy was not on the child protection register.
The boy's three-year-old sister has been taken into care, police said.
Two health care trusts, Westminster City Council social services and a consortium of London boroughs providing health visitors were involved in the case.
|
|
This is one of the saddest cases I have ever come across
Michael O'Connor, Westminster Council
|
Terry Bamford, chairman of Westminster Local Safeguarding Children Board, said: "This is an extremely tragic case.
"The review will look into several aspects of this complex and challenging case, many of which are still unclear at this early stage.
"When we have investigated the full circumstances that led to the baby's death, we will be able to determine if anything could have been done to help prevent it," he added.
Michael O'Connor, Westminster Council strategic director for children and young people, said: "The family was new to London and the council had arranged their housing.
"They were under the care of the health service, and social services were working closely with health professionals to help support them.
"Neither of the children were on the child protection register and there is no suggestion that they were at risk of harm from neglect or abuse.
"This is one of the saddest cases I have ever come across," he said.
'No stone unturned'
Nickie Aiken, the council's cabinet member for children and young people, said: "There were a number of serious health issues affecting the whole family and the baby had serious developmental issues.
"As far as I am aware, at least nine NHS professionals were working with the family and I hope that no stone will be left unturned to find out exactly why this child died.
"But I want to know why this child was being seen by nine NHS professionals and why things were not flagged up earlier."
The boy's mother was arrested by police investigating the case, but she died two days later.
The Metropolitan Police said the cause of death for the boy's mother had not been established, but it was believed to have been linked to an "existing illness".
They said they were not treating her death as suspicious.
The matter has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Reforms intended to improve the protection of children instead risk trebling just one part of the workload for social workers and therefore driving more valuable staff away from the profession, new analysis from local government leaders showed today.
The Local Government Association has commissioned research from Loughborough university as part of on-going efforts by councils all over the country to make the safety net which protects children from harm as effective as possible.
A recommendation drawn up in the wake of the baby Peter Connelly case says that any referral from another professional, such as a police officer or health worker, should result in social services carrying out an initial assessment. Initial findings from the research has found that, in a worst case scenario, this requirement could lead to a 300% increase in the number of such assessments some social work teams have to do.
The steep rise, not practically possible at current staffing levels, could mean an estimated 6,300 extra social workers were needed if it was replicated across the country, at a cost of nearly £250 million annually. This is based on each initial assessment taking on average 10 and a half hours to complete.
The figures are among early findings from research being carried out by Loughborough University which examines the implications for local government of enacting all of the recommendations made by Lord Laming in The protection of children in England: a progress report.
Children’s social workers are the staff councils find it hardest to recruit and retain, and the LGA is warning a large number of new recruits cannot be easily rushed into the system because they need to be properly prepared for the demands of the job. The cost of financing such an approach has implications for other parts of children’s services because it could take funding away from preventative work, such as parenting courses, which reduces families’ needs for intervention in the future.
The final Loughborough university report will be used to formulate proposals for how local government can work with Lord Laming’s recommendations, with the ultimate aim of making child protection systems as good as they can possibly be. The next twelve months is expected to be a period when children’s services will continue to be strained by increasing workloads and therefore common sense measures to reduce bureaucracy and focus resources on the front line will be crucial.
Cllr Shireen Ritchie, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People board, said:
“Money cannot and should not be a factor in deciding how this country can best help children grow up safe from cruelty and neglect. Every right-minded person wants to know everything possible is being done to keep children safe from harm, but it would be irresponsible to pretend that there are no financial implications for proposed changes to how we protect children.
“There is no magic wand which can quickly produce thousands more qualified, expert social workers. There is a huge number of dedicated staff at work on the front line making a positive difference to children’s lives every day, but new social workers must be given the time to develop their skills so they can also become top-quality professionals.
“The danger in the meantime is that increasing workloads drive more hard-working social workers to the limit of their endurance. No-one wants efforts to improve child protection to overburden social work teams and lead to more staff leaving.
“That is why the LGA is dedicated to investigating the implications of child protection reforms. The aim now is to find the right way forward, to make services that protect children the best they’ve ever been while properly supporting the people who do this vital work.”
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=9004959