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Ticking boxes and filling in forms is just no way to be a social worker
David Cohen13.11.08
When Pauline Bradley, a former Haringey social worker, heard about the horrific case of Baby P, she buried her head in her hands and felt "a profound sense of shock but not a bit of surprise". "I take no pleasure in saying 'I told you so' but I was expecting another tragedy like Victoria Climbie," says Bradley, 46, who resigned in 2006 after 13 years in the job because she was "disgusted, dismayed and exhausted" at trying to tackle problems that are "endemic" - and "not just in Haringey but countrywide".
In many ways, she says, social services departments have gone backwards since Lord Laming's Climbie inquiry led to recommendations that were meant to help prevent catastrophic mistakes by social services. Bradley spoke out as Children's Secretary Ed Balls sent an emergency team of inspectors into Haringey council to determine who should be held responsible.
But Bradley, echoing influential voices within the social work profession, says the Government itself should also bear some of the blame for imposing a bureaucratic system that keeps social workers in their offices attending to form-filling and financial constraints that fail to recognise the enormous difficulties faced by inner-city boroughs such as Haringey.
Members of the public will wonder how a 17-month-old baby could sustain 50 injuries - including azt broken back, eight fractured ribs and severe cuts and bruising - in eight months and be visited 60 times by social services and still not be taken into care, she says.
"The problem is that after Victoria Climbie's death in 2000, a new group of managers came into Haringey council and, desperate to cover their backs, tried to turn social work into a business model," she says.
"The focus was relentlessly on filling forms, ticking boxes, attending the requisite meetings, and if you did all that, the theory was that everything would be fine. Management became obsessed with procedures, as if social work is an exact science, and experienced social workers like myself who tried to exercise independent judgment were slapped down."
The culture became so oppressive, says Bradley, that it led to rows between the then social services heads, Anne Bristow and David Derbyshire - both have since left - and front-line social workers, many of whom Bradley would later represent as their union representative.
"In a reflex response to Climbie, social workers were being forced by management to take children into care in situations they sometimes felt did not warrant it.."
As the number of Haringey social workers fell to alarming levels due to poor morale and low pay (at one point it had 47 per cent vacancies), Haringey responded by hiking salaries by £8,000 to £32,000.
"Overnight it went from the second worst payers in London to one of the best and had the pick of the crop," says Bradley. "It was particularly keen to recruit newly-qualified social workers straight from university who would follow the new procedures without question. Staff who challenged managers were written off as troublemakers. It was no way to run a social services department."
Although Bradley had only brief dealings with the current head of children's services, Sharon Shoesmith, who joined in 2005, she believes that the system created an environment in which trained professionals were not encouraged to develop the "art" of social work and as a consequence could be "too easily duped" by Baby P's 27-year-old mother.
In Baby P's case, the allocated social worker, Maria Ward, 39, and her manager, Gillie Christou, 50, had sent the baby back to his mother and her boyfriend on numerous occasions, even when explanations for his multiple injuries seemed implausible. "They failed to exercise the one thing they were trained to do: see through the parent's deceit," says Bradley.
"There is no doubt," agrees Ian Johnston, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, "that fundamental errors of judgment were made by the social work team and that Baby P's death was preventable. I wouldn't want to defend what happened. It was far from best practice. But we also need to look at how management have disempowered social workers through their prescriptive policies."
Liz Davies, 60, a senior lecturer in social work at London Metropolitan University and a former Islington social worker, believes that "ultimately, myopic government policy" is to blame. "The Government rates councils on the basis of their meeting performance targets. In practice, this means that every time a social worker arranges a child protection conference, they have to fill out a ridiculously detailed 40-page care assessment form that takes eight hours to complete, because otherwise the council will not get its star rating. So the Government pushes the councils, and it means that social workers are tied up in the office instead of being out in the field saving lives."
Lack of government funding also plays a critical role, she adds. "In the past few years, there has been a big move countrywide away from taking children into care and towards trying to make things work within their families. That's all very laudable but I can't help wondering whether it's because the cost of obtaining a legal care order used to be partially borne by the state, whereas these days the council has to fund the whole amount."
While it's true that the £4,000 cost of instigating care proceedings may not seem much, it can skyrocket if the care order is contested. The Family Law Bar Association reports that, in the face of financial restraints imposed by government, care proceedings are down by a third this year, and in some boroughs, down by half.
In Haringey, where poverty profoundly effects the Tottenham side of the borough, this issue is particularly pertinent because the funding shortage is so acute. Although the Conservative leader David Cameron yesterday told Parliament that "this case is about a social services department that gets £100 million a year and still can't look after children", there are many who think that in challenging boroughs such as Haringey, this is simply not enough.
Bradley, who now works as a social worker near Glasgow, says the chronic lack of funds in Haringey meant there were never enough social workers to go round. Back in 2002, the social services budget was £65 million, there were 65 social workers and 220 children on the Child Protection Register. Today the borough has 80 social workers but 20 per cent of posts remain unfilled.
"I remember visiting a mother with three young children living in a single room infested with cockroaches," says Bradley. "They had to share a bathroom and toilet with 11 other council flats, some occupied by men who were alcoholics. I found nothing wrong with the mother's ability to mother her children. I tried to get her fast-tracked for re-housing but nothing shifted. Later the case was allocated to another social worker and I never got to find out what happened. That sort of case is typical in Haringey."
Bradley qualified as a social worker in 1991 after studying at North London Polytechnic and joined Haringey Social Services on a salary of £23,000 in 1993. Her salary was £32,000 when she left in 2006 but apart from a spell as a full-time union representative when she was seconded to Unison to champion her colleagues, she remained a rank-and-file frontline social worker and never progressed to senior ranks.
One of the things that most concerns her about the case of Baby P is that, despite being on the Child Protection Register, there was a five-week period in which the child was not seen by the social worker team.
"One of the problems we face is that there is no guidance as to how often a social worker should visit a child," she says. "All it says is that it should be 'regular' but that is inconsistently applied across England and it could mean once a week, once a fortnight or once a month. The situation is much clearer north of the border and I think that needs to be urgently addressed."
Even if the system is tightened up, I put it to Bradley, it beggars belief that a baby could sustain so many injuries and still be left with the mother. How many times does a baby need to be hit before social services take it into care?
"In my view," says Bradley, "just once." She pauses. "But that's as long as there's not a feasible explanation. The challenge is that things are rarely simple in practice, especially when you're confronted by mendacious parents who tell you the injury was an accident or self-inflicted and your job is to decide whether to believe them or not. "The cost of getting it wrong is terrible."
Reader views (16)
It seems that the target-culture, so beloved by Whitehall bureaucrats, is creating the same counter-productive results as we see in the police and other state agencies. I agree with all the comments above that emphasise the exercise of common sense. I think it is also important to be judgemental where necessary. I fully appreciate that many of the inhabitants of sink estates have been dealt some bad cards in their lives. This is no reason for not telling them "you are a lousy mother, totally unfit to look after children" We should stop patronising these people and take appropriate action wherever necessary.
- Peter, Pirot, Serbia
Paul from Rugby, with all respect, you don't know what you are talking about. If you could spend some time 'out in the field' with some of the social workers I know, and observe how hard they work and how seriously they approach their duties, then you would surely have your eyes opened, and your opinions altered!
- Carol, West Midlands, England
What a surprise hey?! I think not!
In my experience of dealing with social workers on a professional level- it is true that they just tick the boxes as opposed to tackling the problem when abuse is identified. Too many excuses where they claim that they prefer to keep the child with his/her parents when in actual fact its all about funding! Appalling! These vulnerable kids are supposed to be protected by the system yet the system fails them. In this particular case- these were not inexperienced social workers etc. but "mature" only by age I hasten to add who can never justify their decision to allow this continuing episode of abuse. If you can't speak up and do your job which is to protect the child from abuse - then don't be a social worker!! Don't claim to enjoy your job cos its rewarding- can these idiots really say that they are rewarded by their failure to help baby p. Guaranteed -no one will take the rap for this- it will be internal discipline - someone should be made accountable and put behind bars for effectively allowing the death of a child. This should be a landmark decision so judges consider this.
- Appalled, Surrey
I couldn't agree more with Pauline Bradley, Penny and Saunaing- there is a system failure, but these knee-jerk hysterical reactions are very unhelpful to anyone. This is a tragic case, but the last thing we need is another major overhaul, more paperwork and case conferences etc. that happened since the Climbie report. Paul's comments are pretty laughable and really serve to illustrate Penny's points. It doesn't matter where you went to school, the fact is that most people in the general public have no idea or no "real life skills" about the kinds of things we see and work with in the health and social services. Comparable to private sector jobs we are much more likely to work over the hours and take our work home with us literally and metophorically. Ex-military have a completely different set of so-called "life skills". This shouldn't be an opportunity to criticise individual social workers or the government but to look at the real issues at stake here and what can rationally be done about them to prevent another recurrence, and I mean by people who know something about this.
- Anon Doctor, London
Pauline Bradly has summed it up, govenment and councils bureaucracy of ticking boxes is responsible for what is happening in social services. Top management in social services should be made to visit children at risk.
- Maggie, London
There ARE lots of dedicated men and women in the social work profession who everyday go above and beyond the call of duty to help children and families. I dare anyone who thinks they can do better to spend a week in a child protection team and see how they fair. I bet they wouldn't last a week. This is yet another tragedy, and the lessons that will be learned all come down, AGAIN, to lack of resources, too much paper work, and little time to spend with clients. Nobody but social workers care about these families, until a child dies, then you all care and want action! Take some responsibility for your society. What have YOU done today to help a child?!
- Penny, London
"Case conferences" are for when Social Services get together a child's school, the Police, health visitors and whoever else is appropriate to share information so that no-one is thinking "maybe it's only me that thinks this is a problem". They are implemented around the country to ensure that there is no repeat of Climbie case where the different agencies failed to talk to each other. It is not to "keep out of the rain". It seems to me based on what has been released so far that the 'system' generally seems to have been fine. The problem appears to have been human error. Though until the independent investigation is carried out I will reserve judgement.
But the knee-jerking on this site from people who know nothing and do not even appear to have read much about the case is astonishing.
- Saunaing Tic Gill, London
I worked for Haringey and the permanent staff (some of 20 years standing)were told they no longer had a job for life and would have to reapply for their posts if they wanted them. They were immediately put on an 11 months contract which would have to be renewed every year. This way Management could avoid adhering to Employment laws which entitle staff to Legal rights after being employed for over a year. Such cynicism led to huge staff vacancies. People no longer wanted to do social work. The conditions were prohibitive. One made plans to open a business and move to Devon where housing was cheaper & pressures fewer. Only young social work staff were hired, those who would toe the line and not object to stringent curtailment of staff freedom. Mostly these were
BME staff who did not resist the harsh rules because their job opportunities are fewer and they have less choice. Discipline over them was therefore easier. My dissident voice was unwelcome but I was easily disposed of, being temporary.
- Ruth Appleton, London, UK.
This appaling tale of cruelty and neglect is all the more saddening for the fact that everyone who was supposed to watch over and care for this poor infant are now passing the buck. Blame and counter blame is all we are now hearing. The fact remains that even though the Haringey Social services have mountains of form filling and box tickingto carry out, THEY STILL did manage to see baby P, and STILL FAILED him miserably. The people concerned are acting as if they never saw this child, as if they never visited his home, almost as if baby P was INVISIBLE. Why?oh why? did someone (let alone trained officals, police and medical staff)not open their eyes or ears to the pain and suffering inflicted upon this baby. I fear it will happen again unless common sense prevails.
- Andrea, Barnsley, UK
There are very few, if any, good social workers left these days. Most are so over qualified because of having to have an unecessary degree in social work subjects rather than normal common sense and practical ability. Stop the unnecessary form filling, stop the self important 'case conference' meetings (excuse's for staying in the warm and dry to drink tea and eat biscuits). Stop employing snobby social 'workers' who think that the world and their problems end at 5pm, and clock off, because their 'social life' and 'work/life balance' are are far more important than other peoples major problems. And probably more important stop employing silly little 'posh' girls with no experience of anything except school, university and a 'gap year' spent idling their lives away doing nothing of any value. Social workers need to be older people with real life experience, perhaps a good job for ex military personnel and others who have the necessary life skills.
- Paul, rugby england
Will the people who very badly failed this little boy be
prosecuted for negligence .The answer is no .It is unbelievable that these people could be so stupid not to see the terrible injuries inflicted on this little boy.
All the people involved should hang their heads in shame and reflect on their stupidity
Rest in Peace little angel Nobody can hurt you now
- John Webster, Grimsby Uk
As a retired social worker I have every sympathy and and understading with the experiences of Pauline Bradley. Managers trying to ensure they were not in the firing line (covering their backs), little or no support for social workers, the easiest way for a client to get a social worker off their case for doing their job was to make a complaint about the social worker. The government has also to take responsibility for the rewards system of funding and ensuring social workers are spending more time at he computer form filling etc., when they should be doing what they are trained for.
- Georgina Moles, Norwich
Understood, and clearly there is excessive Government-inspired bureaucracy and a lack of funding, but that doesn't excuse the failure IN THIS CASE to see the obvious, give priority to the child, and demonstrate that the mother was lying. The cost of getting it wrong was certainly terrible in this case, for the child.
- Paul Freeman, London, England
I cannot believe that heads will not roll over this. All over the UK when things go wrong, such as the NHS, new managers are brought in at extortionate wages to improve matters. They seem to think meetings are the way forward and one can see that this system of management speaking to one another is clearly not working. Having previously worked in Child Protection, many many years ago, the theory of old fashioned working, ie get in there, see what is happening and if you are in any doubt whatsoever, take action. This is old fashioned, no protocol, no abuse of the civil liberties, only the welfare of the child. These parents sit at home all day and think of excuses to give gullible social workers who have just been recruited and they too often believe them. I think I am right in saying that I am not in the minority in wanting both the social worker involved and her manager gone. They too should be sat at home thinking of any excuse as to why they let this happen. There is no excuse that will be satisfactory. You let this happen and this young child's death should be with you all your life because of your incompetence. Forget protocol, forget procedures, you must have known what was happening. In the interview on television last night when the Head of Social Services was asked if anyone would be sacked because of this: Astoundingly she stated there was no reason for anyone to be sacked as far as she was concerned because there was no breach of practice!!!
- Anon From Cornwall, cornwall
Exactly my comments from the other article about the case the other day 60 boxes ticked, and 60 forms filled in. Something needs to change in this country. Where has common sense gone?!!
- Adam, Manchester, UK
whatdo you expect from a bureaucracy obsessed government, its what labour does best.
- Albert Hall, kettering
