Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, we are fiddling while Rome burns. I have spoken this week to a social worker, a director of children’s services, an academic and a head of a voluntary organisation, all of whom are in total despair about the state of social care. I know it is the Government’s wish to improve that. I am sure that that is where the heart of the Minister in the other place and the heart of the Minister here are. However, I am not sure that they have found the right route forward.

Certainly, the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as a vice-president—feels that there needs to be a balance between greater regulation and encouraging experienced social workers to remain in or return to the profession. I have not yet seen the report from the other place about the movement of social workers but I have read the press report, as I am sure everyone here has. That shows a huge movement. I know that there are vast vacancies and that inexperienced agency workers are taking on these roles with dire consequences.

We know that good social work can transform people’s lives and protect children, and I know that that is the aim of the Government. My concern about what the Government are trying to do at the moment is that this will divert resources and energy. We have got to focus both of those directly on the front line of social work so that we do not leave social workers in local authorities, and sometimes in voluntary organisations, taking the responsibility for the failure of the Government and their authorities to get regulation and professional development right.

We have all been concerned because of Ofsted reports. I have been looking closely at the way that Ofsted works, and I support it in many ways. However, it never takes into consideration the amount of resource that an organisation has. We have occasionally had examples of local authorities that are able to produce more on less resources. However, it is only a handful of authorities. A vast number of authorities are struggling and therefore worrying about what they are going to do. This is about making sure that we have a really good regulator who can assess whether the social worker or the structure in which they are working is at fault.

I have looked closely at how those resources are used. The director of social services to whom I spoke this week simply said, “All I am going to do, because I care about my services, is raise the bar on Section 17”. So we will have more children with greater difficulties going to a higher level of need, and more children below that bar—but again with a higher level of need —who will not get a service.

Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not feel that I have the answer. We all care desperately about social work as a means of helping families in need and we have to find the right answer. However, it is clear that many people feel that we have not reached that point yet.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in this group, and I wish to make two points.

First, I endorse the sentiments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, about whether it should be a priority at the moment to put so much time and energy into setting up a new regulator when the profession, and the front line in particular, is so stretched. I was taken with the report that I saw on the BBC this morning about the Commons Education Committee which said that urgent action is needed regarding social workers’ case loads. It drew attention to high drop-out rates leading to increased workloads. It said that these problems must be tackled, particularly the endemic retention problems in the profession. These are the issues that are crying out for urgent attention, and that is my first concern about diverting our attention from them.

However, when it comes to the proposals that the Government have set out to bring social worker regulation under government control, I very much share the concerns that have already been voiced about the lack of independence in these proposals, which is extremely problematic. As I said, I support the broad concept of a bespoke registration body for social work and of social work having its own regulator, but a regulator needs to do a delicate balancing act and being government controlled makes that very difficult. It needs to balance the need of the public for accountability, the requirements set, quite legitimately, by government, the interests of the profession and the organisational requirements of employers, and any regulator needs to be independent in carrying out that balancing act.

Therefore, my concerns are the ones that have already been voiced. This proposal has come without any prior consultation or dialogue with the social work sector so far. It has not had an opportunity to feed in. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley said, it would leave social workers in a very different position—unique indeed—among health and social care professionals when we should be doing all we can to enhance the status of the social work profession and put it on an equal footing with other health professions.

I also share my noble friend’s view that this proposal will further weaken trust between the profession and Whitehall. In addition, it could well have a negative impact on the extent to which social workers feel real ownership of the very necessary and important improvement initiatives that are around. Indeed, it could also stifle innovation—something that we have discussed very thoroughly. It is very important that we have innovation. Finally, it could well lead to further demoralisation of social workers when, as I said at the beginning, there are currently well-documented problems with recruitment and retention in parts of the workforce. This is simply not the time to go about these reforms.

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[Lord Nash]

As we have not done it, I cannot produce any evidence. However, given that the profession very recently failed to do it—and it seems to follow that it is unlikely suddenly to be able to get its act together quickly—and given the sense of urgency that we have about improving the quality of social work, we believe that if we put the forces of government behind this, we will be able to do it quickly.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I am sorry; I do not understand. Perhaps the Minister can help me. What does that mean? Who will be doing this? Who will ensure that the profession is improving? Who in government will do that? I am sure that it will not be the Secretary of State, so will it be officials—and how much experience do they have—or will there be people in the executive agency who will have experience? It is a serious question because I think it is crucial to know which personnel are going to be responsible for this terribly important task.