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Session 2007 - 08 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords] |
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords] |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Shaw, Mick Hillyard, Committee
Clerks † attended the
Committee Public Bill CommitteeThursday 3 July 2008(Morning)[Mr. Pope in the Chair]Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]9
am
The
Chairman: Before we start, I place on record my thanks to
my co-Chairman, Mr. Williams, for stepping into the Chair at
short notice on
Tuesday.
New Clause 2Chief
Social Worker ‘(1) The
Secretary of State must appoint a Chief Social Worker to fulfil the
functions mentioned in this
section. (2) The Chief Social
Worker shall be responsible to the Secretary of
State. (3) In fulfilling his
functions the Chief Social Worker shall, to the extent he considers it
appropriate, consult and take advice
from— (a) relevant
government employees and
agencies; (b) representative
bodies of social workers; (c)
local authorities and other providers of social work services;
and (d) such other persons as
he considers appropriate. (4)
The Chief Social Worker shall make recommendations to the Secretary of
State on issues
concerning— (a) the
provision of social work services across the
country; (b) the terms and
conditions of social
workers; (c) such other matters
as the Secretary of State may
direct. (5) The Chief Social
Worker shall publicise and promote examples of good practice in social
work and be answerable for other aspects of social work
practice.’.—[Tim
Loughton.] Brought
up, and read the First
time.
Welcome
back to the Chair for the last leg of this Committee, Mr.
Pope. So far it has been conducted in an exceedingly amenable, friendly
and constructive manner. I am sure that today will be no exception.
However, as we are likely to be interrupted this afternoon by a number
of votes and a number of new clauses have been tabled by hon. Members
across the Committee, I will try to get through those in my name as
quickly as possible this
morning. New
clause 2 proposes the creation of the post of chief social worker. It
resulted from the Conservative party commission on social workers that
I chaired and which reported last October. That commission has been
mentioned in the Committee several times. As everybody knows, we have a
chief medical officer, who is currently Sir Liam Donaldson. He appears
frequently on the media as the face of the health service who advises
the Secretary of State. We also have a chief veterinary officer. Many
people will remember Debby Reynolds,
the former holder of that post, who is a little more familiar than Nigel
Gibbons who took over from her. We do not have a post of chief social
worker. In
this Committee, on Second Reading and in other debates, we have touched
on the problem that we all acknowledge faces social workers of their
perception in the press, the constant torrent of negative stories about
them and the lack of reports on their many positive achievements. I
have described social workers as potentially the fourth emergency
service. They should be viewed as no less important than teachers,
police, nurses and doctors. Their work is integral to sustaining
vulnerable families, keeping them together and providing crucial
support. However, for some reason they do not get the same recognition
and respect among the general
public. Too
many people view social workers as part of the problem rather than part
of the solution. The first contact many people have with social workers
is when there is a knock on the door, which may be the beginning of
proceedings that lead to a child being taken into care. Many social
workers would like to intervene much earlier and work on a preventive
basis to keep vulnerable families together. It would be good if they
had the opportunity to do that, but this problem exists because of the
pressures on the system and the high vacancy rates which are at 20 per
cent. in some parts of the
country. Our
commission recommended that the Government create the post of chief
social worker. To quote from our report, a family barrister, Jessica
Lee, who was one of our witnesses, wrote of social
workers: “Due
to resource pressures, they are now seen as ‘bad guys’
who only appear to intervene and remove children rather than be able to
offer the supportive role that they feel they used to be able to
provide to
families.” A
representative of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering
said: “Their
work demands the deepest understanding into the nature of the human
condition and the personal cost to them of doing so can be high. In the
public eye, social workers have become too easily identified with the
problems of their
clients.” The
General Social Care Council stated
that “social
work is often seen as the poor relation in a professional world;
‘only 40 per cent. of the population see the contribution of
social workers to society as very
important’.” There
was plenty of evidence to suggest that there is a problem with the way
that social workers are perceived. That will be all too familiar to
Committee members who have followed that profession. That inevitably
has an impact on their ability to do their
job. Annette
Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I am listening
with interest and it is not that I am unsympathetic. Will the hon.
Gentleman give me an idea of the scale of the office that might be set
up around the chief social
worker?
Tim
Loughton: I shall come to that in a minute. The hon. Lady
makes a good point. Obviously, some of the roles are set out in the new
clause. My
other point is that the commission found that of some 76,000 social
workers registered with the GSCC, only 11,000 belonged to the British
Association of Social Workers. There is a problem, therefore, regarding
a strong voice for the profession, and the head of the
BASW in giving evidence admitted some of the shortcomings of the current
situation. In contrast, the British Medical Association represents the
interests of 70 per cent. of doctors and the Royal College of Nursing
represents 60 per cent. of nurses. There is not a big body that speaks
up for social
workers. The
post of chief social worker may be occupied by somebody who is already
in the Department of Health. There will be a slight anomaly and a split
between adult social workers and children social workers. Whether the
chief social worker would be equally responsible to the Department for
Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health is to be
determined. For example, in the Department of Health we have David
Behan, who is well known to many of us as director general for social
care—he was previously chief inspector of the Commission for
Social Care Inspection. He is exceedingly well respected and highly
qualified. The proposal may mean re-badging somebody like David Behan,
if not David Behan
himself. I
am not talking about an enormous upheaval in structures, creating a
whole new department within the Department of Health or the Department
for Children, Schools and Families, but about having a higher profile
for a lead person who is recognised as the chief social worker. I shall
summarise their roles, as set out in the new clause. They would be the
face of social workers in the media, in particular when there was a big
case. They would also carry the can in the public eye when there seemed
to be something wrong with the system, and they would oversee the
promotion of the social worker profession and better recruitment
campaigns, and would advise the Secretary of State or the Secretaries
of State on technical matters to do with social workers. If we give
that sort of status to a chief social worker, hopefully there will be a
trickle-down effect on the status, standing and recognition of all
social
workers. I
do not pretend that this is a universal panacea, that overnight people
will say, “Oh, now that we have a chief social worker, I am
going to let my social worker over the threshold more often.” It
is a question of building up those images and perceptions. I shall give
the example of New Zealand, where as part of our study I had a long
conversation with Marie Connolly, who is the chief social worker in
that country. The post was created some years ago because they had the
same problem there with the perception of social workers. They thought
that it would be helpful to create the post of chief social worker.
Marie appears frequently in the media. She told me that she had been
offered her own regular newspaper column, to report on the life of
social workers and on things going on in the profession. The innovation
was generally judged to be successful, and we can learn many lessons
from
it. Another
thing that came up in our study—it seems a flippant suggestion
but it is not—was that there should be a soap opera or a popular
television programme centred on social workers. We have such programmes
on doctors, nurses and teachers, and even forensic pathologists have
become part of the culture of popular TV. Yet when social workers
appear in soaps, in “EastEnders” for example, they are
terribly stereotyped and portrayed in a pretty derogatory way as
interfering, which only reinforces some of the misperceptions that many
members of the public have. If we saw social workers in a different
light, as human beings trying to
do a difficult job—in many cases a very
difficult job—in difficult circumstances with restraints on
resources, people might come to appreciate their role more.
It is an
important point of principle. If the Government were to adopt the idea,
we could work on how to create the position. I do not intend it to be
another bureaucratic structure within Government. It is largely a
question of how we focus on one of the most important sets of people
working with vulnerable families. Creating the post of chief social
worker would send out some very positive messages to the profession,
but perhaps more importantly to the public, who might come to
appreciate social workers better. Social workers may then be able to do
their difficult jobs more easily than they can at the moment. I commend
new clause 2 to the
Committee.
The
Minister for Children, Young People and Families (Beverley
Hughes): Let me start by saying that I understand
completely the sentiment behind the new clause. I shall declare an
interest as having trained as a probation officer on a post-graduate
social work course. For some years I taught others to become
post-graduate social workers at Manchester University, so I share the
sentiments that social workers have a vital role promoting the best
outcomes, particularly for vulnerable children. Social workers are
often misunderstood and get an unfair press. They deserve our support
and gratitude. While their mistakes make headline news, and rightly so,
their many successes go largely unreported and unappreciated. I am with
the spirit of the hon. Gentleman’s new clause. It is good to see
the Conservative Party sharing those sentiments about social workers
now. I recall that it was not always the case.
Some time ago
we started to recognise social workers’ valuable contribution,
and the need to support the work and improve its quality, with a
£73 million programme for social work improvement over the next
three years, which the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools
and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West is leading.
That will increase the capacity, skills and numbers of social workers.
Specifically to support newly qualified social workers, we are piloting
a newly qualified social worker status and strengthening initial social
work training. We are developing a professional development framework
for social workers, so that there are better career pathways, and
supporting experienced staff to remain in practice and act as mentors.
That will build on the existing post-qualifying framework for social
workers. As
the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham says, is it equally
important to promote a positive public image, which we are trying to do
through a major national targeted marketing and communications
campaign. The
difficulties with the new clause at this time, and I stress “at
this time”, are threefold. The hon. Gentleman alluded to some of
it. We already have an arguably overcrowded infrastructure for the
support and development of social workers. As he mentioned, we have the
General Social Care Council, which publishes codes of practice to set
the standards of conduct and promotes social work. We have also
established the Children’s Workforce Development Council, which
embraces social work as part of its work across the whole
children’s workforce, including social care. The current chair
of the board is Michael Leadbetter, a former director of social
services in Essex, and he has wide experience in the social work
sector. The Association for Directors of Children’s Services
and the Association for Directors of Adult Services
are also playing a role in driving improvements in quality and
practice. The National Children’s Bureau is hosting a new
centre, working with key partners including the Social Care Institute
for
Excellence. Within
the Department, the Chief Inspector for Education, Children’s
Services and Skills has a duty to inform the Secretary of State of the
quality of children’s services generally. As the hon. Member for
East Worthing and Shoreham has said, David Behan, the director-general
for social care, is in the Department of Health, but has a
cross-government role none the less. The director for social care
leadership and performance reports to him. That post-holder must be a
qualified social worker and in that capacity provides professional
leadership and advice to Ministers about the profession. My hon.
Friend, and I before him, worked closely with the relevant Minister in
the Department of Health on all these matters relating to social work
practice and social care. There is quite a crowded field
already. 9.15
am Secondly,
to pick up a couple of points that the hon. Gentleman made, to compare
this post with other chief officer posts is not necessarily a valid
exercise without considerable discussion. Take the example of the chief
medical officer. That post is rather different from that which I would
envisage here. That is because the structure of those organisations and
the way in which the professionals are employed within them is very
different. The NHS is a central body, directly managed by the
Department of Health. The chief medical officer post and the chief
nursing post, among others, provide input directly to assist that
management. Here, of course, social workers are employed by local
authorities, without that central management
structure. The
hon. Gentleman also mentioned a comparison with New Zealand. We are not
necessarily talking about the same kind of structure and would a chief
social worker post offer the same as it may seem to do in New Zealand?
Social care there is like the NHS and the Department of Health here; it
is the province of a central Department which discharges all the social
work functions. Here social workers are employed by local authorities,
which are responsible in law for those social care functions. The post
of a chief social worker does not translate that
easily. Finally,
the most important reason for me is that we set out in our
children’s plan our ambition to have a world-class
children’s work force. To help us implement both the changes we
have already made and those we want to make, we have established an
expert group to support us in developing a long-term strategy for the
work force, including social work. We will publish that in the autumn.
The expert group, and the strategy team that is supporting it, are
looking at six themes: work force capacity, excellence in practice,
purpose and roles, improving joint working, what interventions work and
developing and managing work force reforms.
One the of the
key things the group is looking at is whether the delivery
infrastructure for different parts of the work force, which I sketchily
outlined and suggested was already very crowded, makes sense now. The
expert group is deep into considering that evidence at the
moment. I would not want to pre-empt its
considerations
by adding in another post now. A chief social worker
post may be an interesting idea as we reform that infrastructure. I am
happy to ask the expert groups specifically to examine that proposal,
but I do not feel able to accept the amendment now, because we are in
this process with experts from the profession advising us how we might
make some long-term and more radical changes. I hope that the hon.
Gentleman will accept that assurance, recognise that we will ask our
expert group to give his proposal consideration and therefore not press
his new
clause.
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