England's children's review does not resolve workforce issues - report
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 11 August, 2022
Workforce changes proposed in England’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care are not ambitious enough and fail to understand the role of social workers, BASW England said.
The criticism follows feedback from members on the review’s final report published in May.
Commenting on the review’s recommendations for reforming the workforce, BASW England said: “There are significant weaknesses in this part of the review.
“These proposals in relation to the potential of the workforce do not reflect the breadth and nuance of the social work role in society.
“They are neither ambitious nor pragmatic and will, we fear, not encourage social workers to join or stay in the profession.”
It added the review had a “very narrow child protection specialist career development” focus, ignoring other areas such as social work with disabled children, foster care and neighbourhood social work.
The role of social work to advocate for policy to support children and families was “completely lost” in the review, said BASW England.
It called for a greater understanding of the “complex and deeply emotional task” of social work and for this to be reflected in organisational cultures that are “relational, reflective and respectful”.
A key recommendation of the review – the creation of “expert child protection practitioners” – was rejected by BASW England.
“The review reduces social work to specialised child ‘protection’ rather than generalised child (and family) ‘safeguarding’, it said.
Among recommendations in the independent review's 278-page report were:
- The creation of a five-year Early Career Framework for social workers in children’s services linked to a new national pay scale
- A trial of making social workers available outside normal hours
- £253 million spent on professional development of social workers
- Making it a requirement for senior social work managers and leaders to spend 100 hours in direct practice to retain registration
Members also took issue with other recommendations in the review. The report said they were “unequivocal” in their opposition to proposals to abolish the roles of independent reviewing officers (IROs), independent child protection chairs and the regulation 44 independent person.
One said: “IROs provide an opportunity to support social workers in reflective practice, they provide an opportunity to challenge not only social care but other agencies when they are just not doing a good enough job for our children that we are responsible for.”
Another said it was “an astonishing step to take” adding: “Where is the independent overview of practice and holding the local authority to account?”
The review, however, claims IROs lack independence to challenge poor social work practice and do not have enough meaningful contact with children to champion their wishes and interests.
It recommends replacing local authority-employed IROs with “advocates” overseen by England's children’s commissioner.
BASW England said this demonstrates a “dangerous misunderstanding of the two roles”.
It also said the review recognises but then “sidelines” contextual factors impacting on families such as poverty and deprivation.