Councils to be allowed to opt out of child protection laws

[LadyConstanceDeCoverlet]

• and also legal requirements for care for disabled children. Information here - www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/09/30/councils-to-be-allowed-to-opt-out-of-child-protection-laws .
  

AIBU to ask people to join the campaign against it? togetherforchildren.wordpress.com/

[justicewomen]

Here in Suffolk we had a terrible example of privatisation of public services. Serco took over community health services and said they could reduce costs significantly. They did this by reducing the number of district nurses etc.

Then surprise, surprise they found they could not deliver on the service because of the lack of district nurses and missed targets. The human consequences were horrible.

The public sector then had to take over the work. In public services where staffing is the main cost, it should be clear to all, commissioners and providers that there are no simplistic solution and privatisation (where a profit element is added to the costs) promising savings should be treated with the right amount of scepticism.

With regard to the proposals on child services, the duties imposed on local authorities are a safety net against "innovation" which adversely impacts on the services to be provided to very vulnerable children .We remove them at their peril.

[crashdoll]

Serco are not fit for purpose in adult social care.

Managing a service that deals with society's most vulnerable citizens is totally incomparable to a mobile phone company. Local authority government social care organisations are chronically underfunded and may not be able the best quality social care but they're a hell of a lot better than private providers like Serco. I'd rather relinquish my professional registration than work for somewhere like that.

[Absofrigginlootly]

if you believe it has not been more successful than not you are severely deluded or under educated.

How rude! I actually have several degrees and postgraduate masters/diplomas from top-10 leading red brick universities so not under educated at all. Not that it matters. People are allowed different opinions to you without that making them stupid or uniformed.

Like pp said above, social care organizations are not mobile phone companies.

Of course, generally speaking, when you are providing a commercial venture then private companies are more profitable (is that what you meant by successful?).
(Although my DH who is reasonably high up in a multi billion pound production company would tell you that this approach has many flaws when it comes to efficiency, quality and HR.)

You simply cannot measure 'success' in providing public services that support vulnerable people in the same way that private profit making companies do.

How does one measure the value of someone's privacy and dignity being taken into account during an intervention? Their religious and spiritual beliefs being supported in the way staff have accommodated special requests?

Or are we only interested in whether x number of staff have visited x number of clients in 5 hours....? Does that show value for money? More efficiency? Is that better? What if those staff didn't give a shit about the values that matter to their clients? Doesn't matter because the company has ticked it's boxes on efficiency.

Where NHS trusts have tried to adapt more cost efficient ways of working (because they've had to due to underfunding) they've brought in a ceo who used to manage a bank or something. Completely the wrong model for a public sector service! They are not businesses and shouldn't be run that way!

It's like comparing apples and oranges

[caroldecker]

Under educated in living with nationalised companies - look at the history.
I disagree social services are totally different from running a national telephone service - it is all about customer first.
And if you believe that people working for public services 'care' more than private employees, you are severely deluded.

[justicewomen]

Carol
By that statement shows you have little understanding of the complexity of the issues. Take child protection typical issue- whether to remove disabled child of parents with learning disabilities, and who themselves are care leavers. Who is the customer? What does customer service look like? What if lack of health care, housing, benefits, issue with debt, etc are also factors?Add in foster carers and some prospective adopters.

What is in the contract to deliver? Now try and commission that service, setting out the parameters, and without creating reverse incentives.
It is a complex mosaic and by "innovating" in one part, other parts have a horrible habit of unravelling. And as the prison system has shown (see the disasters at Medway youth jail) privatisation and public service has a troubled history.

It is not about public good, private bad (I am not in the public sector) but at least we have long established public duties which can be used, if the public sector mess up.

[justicewomen]

Sorry they should be perverse incentives

[Eustaciavile]

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/168276
Petition against the bill if anyone wants to sign.

[caroldecker]

Justice I agree it is complex, but just as complex for the public sector as the private sector.
As for 'long established public duties that can be used', whatever that means, Birmingham council child protection has been rated inadequate since 2008, over 8 years of failing children. Do you genuinely believe a private sector provider would be able to get away with that?

[Absofrigginlootly]

And if you believe that people working for public services 'care' more than private employees, you are severely deluded.

You really don't need to be so rude, maybe you should reflect on your posting style.

I don't think that public sector employees care more than private sector ones. I never said that. But generally speaking (and as others have highlighted above with their example of community carers) private companies are much more inflexible and restrictive in what services they will provide and this pressure is filtered down to its employees who are restricted in what they can deliver.

You can see this in GP surgeries. They are private enterprises who win NHS contracts to provide certain services (like diabetic care). I've spoken with several practice nurse colleagues who've complained to me that since they were taken over by larger more commercial GP consortiums they are severely restricted and even disciplined if they give 'extra' appointments to patients who need more pastorial care because "each diabetic patient is only allocated x number of consultations per year within their contract" and bugger it if the patient still has questions about their diet and medication - they've got to join the back of the que again because they've had all their appointments!

I agree with you that lots of NHS trusts and local authorities are not up to scratch or even fit for purpose in some cases. But this is because they are VASTLY AND DANGEROUSLY UNDERFUNDED not because the public service model doesn't work!

Privitisation is just not the answer.

Oh and I currently live in America so I'm not undereducated about living with both nationalized (in the uk) and privatized (here in the us) service providers

[Shallishanti]

thanks for the link Eustacia, please sign, everyone

[Absofrigginlootly]

Signed and shared on Facebook 😊

[caroldecker]

Abso so the private providers are not underfunded? My point is that public providers get away with shit service that is killing children (Birmingham) with nary a complaint on here or in the media, but a private provider (with the same budget) would, rightly, get a roasting.
The view is not - what is the best way of providing a service and sepnding the money we have, but Private bad, pubic good.
This attitude enables large numbers of organisations and employees to continue to fail without anyone making a fuss.

[crashdoll]

Do you work in social care, caroldecker because you don't seem to have an even basic understand of delivering social care services? Saying it's about "customer first" is laughable. Many users of the service are mandated by law to engage or lack capacity to consent and understand the process. Perhaps you should educate yourself first before shooting your mouth off at other posters.

[justicewomen]

Carol it is a lot harder for a wronged individual to take action (or even get information) against a private company than one in the public sector. There are issues of contracts being "commercially confidential" (something I came upon when a group I know queried the placement of people with LDs in private Assessment and Treatment Units) and it is not clear whether the HRA or Public Sector Equality duty apply to private providers.

So the problem of this Act is to allow the local authorities (and by definition the private providers whom they contract with) to further avoid liability if things go wrong- a dangerous and retrograde step

[Absofrigginlootly]

This attitude enables large numbers of organisations and employees to continue to fail without anyone making a fuss.

Eh?! NHS trusts and social services failures that have resulted in serious case reviews are always making the news! And doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers etc are leaving their professions in droves!!

They are making lots of noise but the government isn't listening!

[dangerrabbit]

Thanks OP for sharing this important petition. Interesting it hasn't reached the national news yet, no?!

[Pisssssedofff]

Gee I worked in HR for a privatised service provider, "we" were the organisation who brought back dirty instruments that hadn't been autoclaved to one of the most expensive public hospitals ever built. Millions of public funds spent in beautiful buildings but surgeons couldn't operate as they didn't have the most basic of equipment. Do you know what happened as a result of this calamity? Nothing. Heads would have rolled for that in the NHS

[Absofrigginlootly]

This petition has a lot more signatures

you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/protect-the-rights-of-vulnerable-children-and-care-leavers?utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast&utm_campaign=17_10_2016_fb-social-care-post&bucket=email-blast-17_10_2016_fb-social-care-post