Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 68)
MONDAY 18 MAY 2009
BRIDGET ROBB
AND HEATHER
WAKEFIELD
Q60 Chairman: There must be planning
about that. The funding doesn't flow from the Higher Education
Funding Council ad lib. There is a plan. This Committee's predecessor
used to deal with higher education, and I know that no university
has an open-ended number of social work places. They don't.
Bridget Robb: No, but what has
been happening, as we were saying, is that for universities to
get their performance indicators they are taking on more students,
so they have seen social work programmes as a very easy way of
helping people to meet the targets. There has been pressure from
universities, as well as from students, which has meant that social
work numbers have gone up.
Chairman: Bridget that is very valuable
evidence. Heather, do you have anything else to say on Graham's
point?
Heather Wakefield: No.
Q61 Mr Stuart: Heather, you just
said no, but I noticed that in your submission you talked about
the fact that we need a debate about systems for modelling how
many social workers the country needs and so on. If we did that,
implications could arise from it. The suggestion from your submission
is that, contrary to what you think, in a sense, there is no such
modelling now and no one is making that assessment.
Heather Wakefield: I don't think
they are from the point of view of local authorities. I think
we feel very strongly that, in general, few local authorities
engage in anything that you could call work force planning. That
goes for anybody, but for social work in particular, there is
a real need to look at demography, levels of deprivation and the
composition of the local population—to think ahead and look
much more precisely at what and who is needed.
Q62 Chairman: One thing that really
worried me in your earlier evidence was that it seemed as though
you were saying that it is just as important to reflect the social
make-up and diversity of the community in which the local authority
sits as to have qualified people. Are you suggesting that people
from different minority ethnic backgrounds don't have to meet
the same tests of qualification as others?
Heather Wakefield: No, I am not
saying that at all. I was saying that social workers should be
as qualified as they can possibly be—[Interruption.]
I apologise—I think that was probably my phone pinging away.
Chairman: There's a £50 fine for
doing that.
Heather Wakefield: We need to
think beyond the social work degree and look at the sort of training
that we have developed with the Open University and some local
authorities, and we need to look at life experience as well as
A-levels. There is endless research to show that A-levels are
not predictors of degree outcomes. I would think that you could
extrapolate that to social work degree outcomes. There are many
people out there from all ethnic communities with huge amounts
of experience in their personal and professional lives who could
well become very, very good social workers if encouraged through
a different route. I suppose that I am saying by implication that
while we support the social work degree route and the newly qualified
social worker status, there are and should be alternatives and
equivalents.
Chairman: As a distinguished member of
my family was a very good social worker who came to it in a later
part of her life, I think I might agree with that—but that
is personal prejudice towards my mother-in-law.
Q63 Mr Heppell: On post-qualifying
training, the task force noted that there was not enough support
from employers—or at least that there were concerns about
the level of support and funding. In terms of professional development
so that you can specialise, that is something that I would feel
fairly strongly about. What can you do to make that work better?
I know Unison would like to impose greater requirements, but besides
imposing greater requirements, what could you do to make it easier
to facilitate access to post-qualifying training? Is there a difference
in the training between statutory bodies and other employers?
Could you say that it is better in one place and worse in another?
Bridget Robb: I wish we had an
easy answer. Part of it has been the mindset that said, "Well,
to have a degree was a luxury anyway, so you didn't need to do
anything else." However much we have tried to shift that,
it has remained a very prevalent view among employers, and indeed
social workers themselves, who did not put themselves forward
for ongoing training. It isn't just blaming one side—this
is a challenge to the profession. Other things came in with that,
sometimes linked to work load. People who put themselves forward
for the post-qualifying child care award, which was widely taken
up, often found that they didn't get the work load relief to which
they felt entitled. They therefore had to do the course and the
rest of their day job. Such pressures and people's experiences
of further qualifications and continuing professional development
were not always easy. They felt that they were doing it in their
own time and at their own leisure, and many felt that was an unreasonable
expectation from employers, when it was actually a work requirement.
The other thing is that people took the qualifications under those
pressures, but then there was no extra money for them at the end
either. The climate has not been conducive, therefore, to employers
or workers putting time and energy into doing some of these programmes.
A different one, of course, was the mental health award, where
there was a legal responsibility. Even then, however, the pressures
didn't always change, which is partly why it was difficult to
get people to come forward and be approved as social workers in
mental health. The question is about how we change the educational
climate. One of the things that has changed significantly has
been working more closely with health and education colleagues,
whose attitude towards ongoing education is so different. That
is partly driven by funding, but also the professional attitude
is so different. That has made social workers sit up and wake
up to the fact that some of the systems and processes that we
have been involved in have not necessarily been very healthy.
It has also been a career wake-up, because if you want to do well
in a career in these new, broader organisations, you have to be
able to stand up educationally against your colleagues from health
and education, for whom further programmes and continuing professional
development are an automatic part of their professional thinking.
We are in a climate where there is the opportunity to build on
this changing mindset. It doesn't take away the real financial
stresses and strains and the real issues about professional development
and pay, but at least we are in a climate where there is growing
awareness that social workers have to be educated and undertake
continual professional development to be able to call themselves
professionals alongside colleagues from other professions.
Q64 Mr Heppell: Is there a difference
between statutory and other bodies? Are those working for the
council directly more likely to be offered training?
Bridget Robb: I think there are
some variations—it depends. In organisations doing work
under contract—some of the statutory work—there is
more of an expectation that people do training.
Q65 Mr Heppell: I have a feeling
that you have answered this already, but do you agree that the
arrangements for postgraduate training do not address the possible
gaps in the initial training or in the support for full specialisation?
Chairman: Can you be brief, because we
are coming to the end?
Bridget Robb: Before we came in,
Andrew Webb, who was speaking for the task force, showed me the
list of the training that his authority offers its staff at post-qualifying
level. The list of opportunities for continuing professional development
is impressive, and his organisation is not alone in offering all
sorts of opportunities. But—this is no criticism of him,
because this is very common—local authorities provide a
lot of one-day and half-day courses that don't build up to anything.
Chairman: They aren't "Death by
PowerPoint", are they? We learned that from the teachers—we
are fond of it.
Bridget Robb: I really hope not.
But there is also no external accreditation of courses. If people
want to state publicly what development they have undertaken,
you can list a whole series of things they have engaged in, but
there is no evidence of continued learning or professional development.
There continue to be challenges about the different ways the money
is put together and the different ways we recognise qualifications.
Q66 Mr Heppell: There are a couple
of other things. One thing that really surprised Professor John
Carpenter, from the University of Bristol, was that, in contrast
to doctors, who would just be expected to train people under them—that
is a requirement on more qualified staff—there is no such
requirement on highly qualified people in social work. He said
that people may take somebody on to train them only a couple of
times in their whole career. Is there a way in which we can build
an expectation into existing staff that they would automatically
be involved in training junior staff if they had a certain level
of competence and experience?
Heather Wakefield: Yes, I think
that that is absolutely right, although not all very good social
workers will necessarily be very good trainers, as is the case
in any profession. But what you say has to be true; otherwise,
how do we transmit knowledge and experience?
Q67 Mr Heppell: I think that you
have already answered the questions that I was going to ask about
front-line supervisors, the management, and keeping the skills
of the social worker, but what about the idea of a chief social
worker? I know that that is happening. Is it necessary for there
to be somebody in the corporate body who speaks for social workers
specifically? Is that a good idea?
Bridget Robb: As you may know,
we think that it is a good idea and we are interested by the different
models that are being explored. We know of one local authority
that is looking for a chief social worker for the whole local
authority, because it recognises that its social work staff are
scattered throughout a series of its departments. It felt that
that was one way of bringing things together, or at least of exploring
the issues. The question is how we get recognition of social work
right the way up the system. We have a chief medial officer at
Government level and we have chief nursing officers, but we do
not have anything that describes social work in the same way—it
has always been subsumed under social care or children's services.
One thing that the task force is looking at is what we need to
show that social work has a presence in its own right at employer
level and Government level.
Q68 Chairman: Is the situation of
the social worker exacerbated when the head of a children's services
department is not a social worker by background, but has a schools
background?
Bridget Robb: We were concerned
when so many directors of children's services seemed to come from
education. That went partly back to perspectives and experience,
but it also went partly back to the educational background of
directors of social services, which did not necessarily put them
in the running for these top jobs. The issue of education is not
just about newly qualified staff, but goes right through the system.
How do we make sure that social workers are educated in such a
way that they can compete for these top jobs? There is more of
a balance now, as things have gone on, but this is a real challenge
for anyone. A director of children's services has an enormous
brief, and it is an enormous challenge for one person to incorporate
the responsibilities of that full brief. But if they haven't got
the expertise themselves, they have to make sure that that expertise
is in their senior management team. That is where a chief social
worker, or someone to lead the social work knowledge, who has
maintained their front-line knowledge and skills about social
work, seems so important to us, because it is expected that there
is someone who leads the education thinking in that department.
That is what we would expect for social work as well.
Chairman: Bridget and Heather, we have
to pull stumps now. I don't often say this to witnesses, but I
found the evidence from the two of you absolutely fantastic. We
have enjoyed it, you were very succinct, and we learned a lot,
which is amazing. May we remain in contact? We're sorry that this
session was shorter than usual, but if we're going to write a
good report, we need people with your clarity of vision to help
us. Thank you.
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