Shake up child protection – review

Munro report to recommend that social workers are given more autonomy to exercise their professional skills and judgment Child protection social workers should be freed up from box-ticking bureaucracy to give them more time to work with families and at-risk youngsters, a government-commissioned report was due to say on Tuesday. The review of safeguarding practice by Professor Eileen Munro will recommend that excessive centrally imposed targets and regulations are ripped up, and practitioners are given more autonomy to exercise their professional skills and judgment. It will also call for the establishment of a chief social worker to speak nationally for the whole of social work, and for child protection social work teams to be allowed to leave the councils and set up in professional practices. Munro was commissioned last year by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to look at a system he said was too bureaucratic, unaccountable and obsessed with procedures and targets. Although the profession is expected to welcome the report, there will be concerns that any improvements in practice that come through the proposed changes will not be enough to offset increasing demands on children’s social work departments at a time when many are facing serious spending cuts and difficulties in recruiting staff. Munro’s insistence on the importance of keeping the director of children’s services role introduced under the last government to oversee child protection locally may also prove problematic. It is estimated that around a fifth of council social work departments in England have started to unpick the reforms introduced seven years ago which vested responsibility for both schools and safeguarding in this post. The review’s final report was expected to say that: • Local authorities should be given greater freedom to develop their own approaches to handling case work, rather than being bound by statutory guidance • Councils should develop ways of keeping experienced senior social workers in front line work so they can better supervise junior practitioners • The excessive burden of inspection on child protection departments should be lifted, and the inspectorate, Ofsted, should not evaluate serious case reviews into child deaths Munro will also recommend that the social work profession be more open and transparent in talking about the pressures and dilemmas faced by safe-guarders, particularly at times of crisis, such as the Baby P case. Child protection Children Social care Baby P Patrick Butler guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 10, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.