Although the spin doctors have been highlighting “googles for playing conkers” and similar press stories, the real intention is to see if the legislation around health and safety at work can be watered down.

In particular Lord Young is a great fan of the deregulation mania that has already seen the GSCC abolished. The consequences of “more relaxed” laws will be most keenly felt by white collar staff such as social workers whose health is at risk from work, but not in the very obvious ways that industrial workers are affected by chemicals and dangerous machinery.

I have already warned of the danger and we’ll be responding as soon as his report is out.  See my blog at:

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/social-care-the-big-picture/2010/06/cameron-dont-play-politics-with-social-workers-health-and-safety.html

Public sector employers tend to either consider the equalities impact on the workforce or on service provision, and sometimes neither, but rarely do so in a thorough and timely manner. The Act requires public bodies to take account of equalities considerations in carrying out their public functions. They must consider any disproportionate impact on protected groups when making decisions, such as budget cuts.

The Public Sector Equality Duty  now applies to discrimination on the grounds of age, sexual orientation and religion and belief, as well as race, gender and disability. This extended duty will probably come into force in April 2011.  The new act also contains significant differences in terms of new definitions and enhanced protection for disabled people.

The equality duty has already been used to challenge public bodies on equalities. It requires equalities considerations to be an integral part of policy-making and key decisions about budgets and services, not an add-on at the end.

We’ve already seen  the  Fawcett Society demanding a Judicial Review of the whole Budget as they believe that it impacts disproportionately on women, whilst the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has written to all government departments asking for reassurances that they will comply with equality legislation when making decisions such as budget cuts. Even the Tory equality minister Teresa May has privately warned George Osborne on the issue.

As Aspect showed when responding to Kent Council’s childrens families and education cuts, a propoer equality impact assessment can be embarassing and produce changes.

Full details at www.equalityhumanrights.com

The first report from the munro review is out today. It is scoping exercise, with no recommendations at this stage.

What Munro writes is consistent with her previous thoughtful writings on systems in child protection.

However the tricky bit is yet to come for this Review.

This government believes in deregulation at the same time as it is cutting resources. There is a fine balance between support and statutory intervention and there must be a risk that the anti regulation approach of Ministers could itself have unintended consequences by undermining statutory intervention.

This report and the subsequent report and proposals come at a time when universal services and preventative services are at immense risk. Witness the recent BBC report on the consequences of health visitor shortages.

I think the jury should stay out until we see what Munro says (and the Government does) about these issues.  Less focus on process must not mean professionals are less reluctant – or able – to intervene decisively in the interests of the child when necessary. Heaven knows, councils already have too few social workers and in two years time they will have less social workers, social care staff and back up admin.

Community Care has a helpful summary

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/10/01/115454/munro-review-social-workers-fail-children-due-to-focus-on-rules.htm

The full report is at

http://www.education.gov.uk/munroreview/downloads/TheMunroReviewofChildProtection-Part%20one.pdf

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2010/apr/29/baby-p-social-work-reform-backtracks

A report published on April 26 by accountancy firm MacIntyre Hudson and Portsmouth University’s Centre for Counter Fraud Studies puts £22bn of the losses down to errors and fraud across local and central government. A further £16bn was a result of uncollected taxes. The £38bn total was more than double previous official estimates.

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2010/04/public-sector-fraud-is-costing-billions-a-year/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/13/baby-p-case-good-witch-hunt

In an astonishing statement yesterday Lord Justice Wall – who was sworn in yesterday as the president of the high court’s family division – attacked social workers in Greenwich.  In a bizarre interpretation of social workers’ legal duty towards children he said social workers’ legal duty should be to “unite families rather than separate them”

Which appears to beg four questions

Does he read the statutory framework?

Does he follow case law?

Does he read serious case reviews?

Should he be in his new job?

Read more at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/13/judge-shocked-social-workers-families



The taskforce called on employers to review their job evaluation of basic grade social workers to ensure that their knowledge and skills were being fairly rewarded. It added that if the current national agreement on local government pay failed to deliver improvements, the government should consider whether a national pay body was needed to ensure social workers were fairly rewarded.

Aspect believes the current job evaluation schemes used by councils undervalue social workers’ skills and responsibilities. We have lobbied for a national pay scale for practitioners to bring the profession into line with the police and NHS. However, this move was ruled out by the National Joint Council, the negotiating body for local government pay,  in a report published last month.

We think this was a mistake.  You can see the full Community Care article at

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/04/08/114237/aspect-stokes-social-worker-pay-scale-row.htm

Although both statements are a useful summary of what social workers can do, and what they can do well, neither statement is very useful in a context where cost pressures, workload pressures, and skill mix are leading some employers to erode the role of social workers in roles and tasks which safe and effective practice should dictate are best done by social workers.

Unlike the 2008 GSCC statement “Social work at its best: a statement of social work roles and tasks for the 21^st century” http://www.gscc.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4EDB6D7E-C18C-4A38-8BEA-D271E9DFFC06/0/RolesandTasksstatementFINAL.pdf neither of these statements contained a list of “Functions requiring social work skill and expertise” as set out in section 7 of the latter statement. The GSCC statement was itself was a weaker version of the Scottish statement on the role of the social worker in  http://www.socialworkscotland.org.uk/resources/pub/RoleofSocialWorkerVisionPaper.pdf

Last month the Scottish government published guidance for local authorities on the role of the registered social worker in statutory interventions which is not simply a descriptive document but helpfully clarifies the statutory role and is intended to be used in employment tribunals and at the Scottish Social Services Council to determine whether individual social workers should remain on the register, the documents for England are purely descriptive. It is well worth reading.

Without a statement that sets out, with backing from regulators, those roles and tasks which require social work skill and expertise, it is inevitable that some – and probably a growing number of – employers will seek to find cheaper options than social workers to undertake some work that would best be undertaken or closely supervised by social workers. In adult services, personalisation is increasingly undermining the role of social workers in some employers. In childrens services, some employers already delegate work to other staff without clear evidence that this is safe or more effective.

Aspect believes a clearer definition of what must, and what should, be done by social workers (with statutory status) would be in the best interest of service users if the cost pressures, and the impact of personalisation and remodelling of social work, are not to create unsafe or inappropriate working practices. The Scottish model is well ahead of England’s both in its content and now in its status.

Aspect’s handbook “What if?” (free to members) seeks to give practitioners and managers clear guidance on some of these issues.

Providing another option means doctors will be able to advise employers that the employee would be able to return to work if temporary arrangements such as reduced hours, changes to duties and responsibilities or moving office can be provided to take account of the fact that the individual is not fully fit to resume a normal working life.

“The changes are not about trying to get people back to work before they are ready but about removing the challenges to them returning,” says guidance notes produced for employers by the Work and Pensions department. See:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/press-releases/2010/february-2010/dwp030-10-190210.shtml

In response, the TUC has issued guidance to unions, http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/fitnote.pdf pointing out that because many employers do not have sufficient occupational health advice to implement recommendations from GPs, union representatives in the workplace will have a “key role in supporting people where the doctor recomends an early return to work may be possible”.

In cases where employees disagree with their GP, workers are advised to seek a second opinion or talk to their union representative. If employers fail to make changes to accommodate a phased return to work the TUC says the employee should stay at home.

The TUC also suggests employees should seek union advice if they find themselves in a situation where they agree with their GP about a return to work but do not think their employer has gone far enough to cope with their limitations.

The TUC says any attempts by employers to match reduced duties with reduced pay should be resisted. Employees should be employed under the same conditions they enjoyed before going on the sick list with modifications to help the transition back to work.

Roger Kline of Aspect said:

“The key purpose of this government policy is to reduce sickness absence, not improve staff health. It is most unfortunate that staff sickness has become an election issue in health and local government not least because of the wildly inflated savings claimed for the policy.

Although the new policy gives GPs (and therefore employers) more flexibility, for example around a phased return to work, the real risk is that staff will be forced back to work when they are still ill. This is particularly dangerous in occupations where staff mistakes can have serious consequences for other people.

What employers in highly stressed workplaces where absenteeism may be relatively high should do is to look at the workplace causes of absenteeism – excessive workloads, stress, concerns about job security, bullying – and tackle those. That is why the Social Work Task Force health check is such a good start.

If this policy forces staff back to work when their long term future (and their long term contribution in the workplace) means they should stay off sick , it will be completely counter productive. We would also be concerned that the new policy could give too much influence to occupational health staff, some of whom are excellent but some of whom are not regarded by staff as being sufficiently independent”