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What's more important, a computer screen or a human being? That may seem like a flippant question but it's one we need to take seriously if we are to improve social services. We hear a lot about ‘inadequate' local authorities and failing services. Indeed, Ofsted and the CQC keep changing their inspection criteria to ensure that there is a steady stream of ‘inadequate and failing' authorities. We hear Government rhetoric about the need for local authorities to maintain frontline services but to do this work within drastically reduced budgets. So what do we need from local authorities? Are they historic dinosaurs that now need to cease to exist to make way for the market delivery of services? Is their role only as commissioners of services or is there still a delivery function they should play? Councillors and managers in every local authority are struggling to determine their current role in society. The provision of social services to adults has been decreasing rapidly with the commissioning of residential and domiciliary services to the private sector. There had been an expectation that children's social services would be more secure within local authorities, but this assumption has been shattered by the events in Doncaster – and the pressures in Birmingham, Norfolk and other authorities which have been persistently seen as ‘failing' in inspections. So what are local authorities for? Local authorities have a unique role to play in properly understanding the needs of their local community and to translate that intelligence into creating the best services. Even if they are not directly providing services, councils can be key to bringing organisations together to improve local communities for everyone, but they have to start by promoting good practice. Too often we see local authorities struggling to provide good services themselves, but see the only alternative as closing down the provision. Too rarely do we see local authorities actively working with other providers to take over the running of a service. Rather than putting the needs of the community first, it is almost that managers imply that if they cannot run the service then no-one should be allowed to. This is why the news that Doncaster will meet with Michael Gove to explore other models of provision is so refreshing. Local authorities have not always serviced social work services well. The pay and regarding exercises have persistently undervalued the job undertaken by social workers. The bureaucratic computer systems that have been proved to be detrimental to good social work practice have proved stubbornly hard to replace despite Government-backed recommendations from the Taskforce, Reform Board and Munro reports. Systems of hot-desking are incompatible to an assessment and therapeutic service such as social work. It is also nonsense to locate social workers miles away from the people with whom they are working. And so the list can grow, highlighting areas where the bureaucratic efficiency of the local authority can be in direct conflict with the delivery of a high quality social work service. This is why too many local authorities find it hard to recruit and retain social workers – and why the number of self-employed social work consultants is growing rapidly. If local authorities want to keep delivering social work services there has to be radical change. Safeguarding services need to be brought together regardless of age. Keeping people safe in the community needs different age groups to work together - in families, in streets, in communities. Local authorities can promote that integrated safety agenda. Critically, local authorities need to be the place where local citizens feel they can engage. Too often the response in times of stress is to reduce the demand from the public for services - to raise thresholds and turn people away. We need local authorities to be the places where all citizens feel they have a right of access, one which helps define where people live and have a stake in their community. We need people to feel that the local authority is working with and for them. The civil disturbances in a number of cities during the summer of 2011 gave us a very clear indication of what happens when people feel that they have no personal investment in their local area. We need to make social work part of the solution of community engagement and community safety, not shut them into a box which keeps the workers dissatisfied and too many people in the community at risk. Currently, social workers are finding their own solutions to enable them to work with communities outside of local authorities. Let's see if we can work together for a new way of delivering community-focused social work for everyone. Bridget Robb Chief Executive British Association of Social Workers

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Social work is part of solution

By Bridget Robb | 05 September 2013

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