to think Privatising Social Services will be a disaster for vulnerable children and families in crisis?

[UnacceptableWidge]

How is this going to help anyone? Can any more clued-up MNers tell me why this would be a positive idea?

Is Gove on some kind of mission to destroy the human race?

link from Guardian

so social services are perfect as they are?

That article is a bit confusing, but the way I read it:

'the government has quietly announced.'

means journalists don't bother to read what's published by the government

www.education.gov.uk/consultations/

and someone only just noticed

'The proposal from Michael Gove's Department for Education (DfE)'

means it's not actually from Michael Gove

And then the rest of the article is just a bunch of rentaquotes

I assume this is the proposal

www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=conSection&consultationId=1961&dId=1344&sId=9160

It says

"Part 1 of the CYPA makes provision for local authorities to delegate social services functions relating to children looked after and care leavers to third parties. Between 2008 and 2012 the CYPA was commenced for piloting purposes, with commencement orders relating to individual authorities."

"In November 2013, the government fully commenced Part 1 of the Act to allow all local authorities in England to delegate the relevant care functions."

So that was Labour privatisation (in 2008), not Gove.

"The government is now seeking views on proposed regulations that will enable local authorities to delegate additional children’s social care functions to third party providers."

"The CYPA provides a power to extend or restrict by affirmative regulations the range of relevant care functions that may be delegated by local authorities. This consultation sets out a proposal to make regulations extending the relevant care functions to cover nearly all local authority social services functions related to children."

"The draft regulations (available alongside this document) would enable all social services functions related to children (with some limited exceptions – see 4.3) to be discharged by a third party provider. They also specify that certain duties of the LA in relation to cooperation, Children’s Trust Boards, and the implementation of Children and Young People’s Plans can also be delegated."

"The CYPA requires all delegated functions to be discharged by or under the supervision of registered social workers. It is for local authorities in conjunction with their third party provider to determine how best to manage this requirement."

"Delegation does not remove responsibility from the local authority for ensuring their statutory obligations are met, and any breach of those obligations would be treated as a breach by the local authority. Services provided under delegated arrangements will be considered by Ofsted as part of its single framework inspection arrangements, and the local authority held to account."

As it makes clear,

(a) this is Labour party law. The Tories are merely bringing it into force

(b) this will be done by individual LAs, they can choose to do it in-house or outsource.

If you look at the rentaquotes:

NSPCC - want the best results, don't care how
Action for Children - say, too many failures with existing system
Local Government Association say we do it better, well they would wouldn't they
Professor Eileen Munro says profit will create perverse incentives, basically the line already used by the nutters who claim that councils have care/adoption quotas
Kathy Evans of Children England is also opposed.

YABU

Good God, no Carol IME they are barely even adequate but privatisation and tending to the highest bidder can't be the only alternative to the current SS we have?
It frightens me, the idea that SS's main goal could be to make a profit. That is my impression of privatisation.

I'm hoping someone will be along soon to tell me why this is actually a great idea and not worrying at all

Thanks for that Aga
So am I right in thinking that the article was talking about outsourcing 'some' of the workload of SS but that the system as a whole would remain under LA control?
You seem much more aware/educated on political matters than I am. Can I ask if you think this is a sensible, helpful approach to child protection?

Unfortunately I have no particular knowledge of child protection. But I could see potentially that a company that does this a lot could develop expertise and systems and so on that make it quite effective.

I mean ideally the local council has however many fantastic, qualified and motivated staff. But with however many hundreds of councils out there, there will be some that are poorly managed and doing a bad job. So it would be better to replace those with an effectively managed third party.

There are lots of procedures and safeguards that big companies tend to develop, and where you do sadly end up with bad social workers working in a particular area, they are IMO more likely to spot things than where those people have free rein.

OTOH of course you could end up with a provider with a lot of short-term staff and people without connection to their area. It's hard to be sure.

I worked for a SW team and when we were looking at services for people with disabilities we 'bought' services from businesses. Care homes, home care etc. We still reviewed, we still assessed. Is this supposed to be the same?

Good posts Aga

Dreadfully bad reporting for not mentioning this became law in 2008.

And then using it to bash Gove? Well, the anti-Gove campaign ('play the man not the ball') has had some risible manifestations, but this (plain wrong) one shows desperation.

Was there an outcry in 2007/08, before the law changed and when the idea could have been killed stone dead?

I retract my question about Gove and concede that where he is concerned, on this matter at least, IABU.
The concept still troubles me though.

What would this policy mean in practice for SS?
Are families under their scrutiny care likely to benefit from this idea or will it mean more unrealistic, profit driven targets resulting in a less common sense approach and being detrimental to children/families in need?

sadly plenty of families need to be under scrutiny care.

unacceptable third party providers can are often are charities, who have been providing adoption help for many years.
I suspect, when you shudder at making companies, you think 2 things:

1. the only interest is profit, to the detriment of other
2. the pot of money is fixed, so the only way to make a profit is to shaft some poor bastard, either employee or service user.

1. Public services have to remain in budget, so the cost control is the same and private companies need to provide a level of service to retain contracts, so profit is not the only motive. You only need to look at the publis sector scandals to know it is the ethos from the top, not whether it is public or private, and private companies have a reputation to maintain, so could have a better service ethos. FWIW, Tesco Bank did not offer mortgages, despite being profitable, due to reputaional damage if they had to repossess properties.

1. The pot of money may be fixed, but how it is used can be different. for example, private companies can invest more easily in IT systems now to save money in thr future than public sector due to way budgets are allocated.

should be shudder at profit making companies

Gove is an absolute IDIOT in my opinion.... Children's well-being should not be privatised at all.

Looking at the companies that they are looking at to take the contracts it makes his idea even more evil and badly thought out. Companies mentioned are Serco, G4S and ATOS all are well known for their massive failings in their current Government contracts and their abhorrent actions towards the vulnerable of our society, now they want to subject children to their treatment???????????????????

Just because Labour proposed it doesn't make it any more right for it to be being pushed forward

It doesn't absolve Labour or Gove from questioning

Looking at the results of Gove's disastrous expansion and changes to Labours existing academy program - I am not filled with optimism - unless they actually plan to FUND and STAFF the services adequately ...unlike now

Gove didn't enact the law that enables this.

Nor will DofEd be letting the contracts.

It will remain an LA responsibility.

If you do not want it to happen in your area, they you need to get on to your councillor, campaign locally, find existing councillors who will pledge to keep sevices under local authority control, or elect those who promise to do so, or stand yourself.

And also look to see how well your LA is performing in theis area. There's nothing sacred about LA control which means that services or good (or fraud impossible) and the more the public hold their representatives to account the better.

I briefly heard something on the news this morning and they specified child protection services.
How will that work?

Does that mean that there will be teams run by contractors? Surely the teams will still be made up of social workers?

Doesn't it mean that social workers will be trained at our expense to then go and work in a new private sector?

I had assumed this was all to do with group homes and leaving care services but thy were speaking about child protection.

Is this right or did the BBC get it all wrong?

The children and families service in my borough is appalling in my opinion.

Terrible.

I am still not happy with this idea though. It is more privatization of the welfare state.

There is a petition about this:

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-privatisation-of-child-protection-services-3

From what I recall of investigations into major failings like the Daniel Pelka case, poor communication between the various agencies and individuals involved is cited as a significant factor time and again. Its also generally agreed that child protection services are underfunded and that social workers are left trying to cope with massive caseloads.
How will outsourcing help with that?

I have only dealt with the children with disabilities team nd they are quite hit and miss tbh. I have no reason to believe our current social worker does not work to the best of his ability to provide for our daughter, but our sw is overworked and its obvious. The management also ignore his opinion/suggestions.

Complaining us a joke. I honestly had the shittest two years of my life and complaining made no difference and 18 months on still no response

Will making it private changr any thing? I doubt it

Owl our CWD team is now only dealing with cases where there are safeguarding issues.

I can see why. The team was decimated in the last round of cuts. I don't know the exact numbers involved but the team went from (say) 30 to 5 overnight.

Exactly, you are NOTHING
you are told to say you want to hurt your child

You do know this? :(

I feel particularly angry because our care was cut to zero and I have as an extremely complex severely disabled teenager, bigger than me and no family support. All other children in her class (6-they are THAT ) at an sld/pmld are under full foster/residential or shared care arrangements. I was assigned idiot social worker who said my child was VERY ABLE compared to the peers in her class because I had managed to cope with her at home at her p levels (as a late teenager) had improved AND THE PANEL AGREED

load of wankers who have ABSOLUTELY no idea, that's what worries me about, I would say all, but some of it. They don't need more management, more panels etc. They need more good, proper social workers
And that's just from the disability side
I find it exasperating

I mean she is in a class of 6, all one to one because they are THAT severe :(