In Defence of Social Workers

Where does one begin at the end of a week when many of ones fears have come to fruition? From the outset, the observation must be that what happened in Haringey is probably happening in every Borough in the land. It is not a generalisation picked out randomly, but based a decade of working along side Social Services.

One glance at Social Services work restrictions show you how claustrophobic their regime can be. There are certain avenues of help a social worker can go down and extremely rigid procedures to follow. It stifles debate and crucifies anyone who wants to right wrong or disagrees with the experts imposed to monitor them. The whole gambit of Social Care and is one of the main reason why universal social needs cannot be met in this country – whether we talk of the 4.5 million pensioners not receiving their full entitlement, or the wounded soldier being offered derisory sums for injuries that their civilian counterpart (that’s an anathema because there is NO equivalent job to that of a serviceman in civvies street) who receives a near fortune (the MoD female typist who received £440K for repetitive stress disorder against the Royal Marine, casevaced from Afghanistan with most of his fingers missing, being offered £20K in full and final settlement????). Funding is limited and probably siphoned off for some other needs, like Councillors expense claims?

So how does the system work? To comply with Government regulations each council sets out its own assessments of needs. They do this by guessing what proportion of their population has certain requirements. In economics, lecturers use an American equation that shows the trillions of dollars the US have wasted in trying to eradicate the 4% of the American population, who, in 1928, was deemed to be unemployable. As a strange quirk of mathematics, that 4% still exists today, yet the addition of noughts onto the original bill to pay for the social inadequate has multiplied exponentially from that original figure. In all reality there is not a single Council in the Land who has the slightest idea of needs away from the red brick edifices of Town Hall. Councillors are so ignorant that they rely wholly on statutory figures to claim their own expenses irrespective of whether an expense has occurred or not. This form of progressive accountancy is part of the evil of modern society as it contributes not a dot to the cohesion for society. Councillors would rather run empty busses than accept that disabled and pensioner passengers are not the burden on the local finances, contrary to what the Council’s accountancy wizards would have us believe. If they cannot control a transport system, how can they give credibility to a system that involves human failings?

If councils cannot obtain realistic figures for their future social budget, they cannot set out budgets or prioritise. For Councils to take on board the American statistics is an abrogation of responsibility and is stupid. In the UK, where the preponderance of service personnel comes from the North West and Scotland, a greater burden of aftercare falls on these regions because Central Government has washed its hands of their problems. Ask any Councillor for the figures on ex servicemen who are in dire need of social rehabilitation and they will all either bull-shit, or tell you blatant falsehoods. This malaise is endemic through Councils whether it is child welfare, pensions, streets, policing etcetera and etcetera.

Within, here I have to use imagination and follow experiences of Blackpool and Lancashire services, the departments of Social Services, there is a strong nucleus of devoted and dedicated social case workers. Just for clarity, let me explain. The caseworker is he or she who has the unenviable task of doing the really dirty work, the house/home call. They visit all types of clients from the abusive, to the malicious and to the down right evil – sometimes they get into see genuinely wonderful people who have no idea of how to apply for help, or whom, through pride or belligerence, think they are not in need of the caring hand that the nation owes them. Social Care caseworkers are not the people employed to clean houses or wipe the disabled persons bottoms (a classification of saint sadly ignored), but the conduit through whom all deeds must be channelled. At this level the services appear to be overwhelmed although the Social Care caseworker does a valiant job. The problems are systemic as the information flows up the tree into the bottle-neck so loved by the profession Jobs-Worths.

Brainwashed to believe that statistics and protocols mean more than human life, the system easily collapses simply because the heads of many departments have no idea of the true role of their case worker. I am not even going to surmise what made Nevres Kemal, the Haringey caseworker, approach a lawyer and hence destroy her own professional career, lest to say that probably events have proven her case. The gagging order should be rescinded immediately and those who are trying to gag her put before the highest court in the land, the people. Explanations are needed and they are needed now. You cannot get at the truth if you employ KGB tactics and gag every individual who happens not to agree with you.

Over the past few years Councils, riding behind a wholly immoral government, have tried to distance themselves from their responsibilities by hiding behind Arms Length Management Organisations. Blackpool’s failed because they will not get John Wayne to play Davy ‘Col’ Crocket, but they do seem to give spurious rank to every civilian in the borough, leaving the ‘regulars’ more shell shocked than the squaddies in Helmand. This is an exercise in madness and futility, like so many from a government incapable of telling criminal self interests from genuine requirements of office. Where people need management organisations they have to be accessible and amenable to all.

Some authorities have found a loop-hole in the one restrictor to help, that is, to be exact, the provision of money by seeking help from the Charities. When people talk of charity they talk of CAB, the RBL and Ssafa as though they all serve the same function. With nearly 20,000 UK charities there is a distinct difference between those who are fund suppliers and those who are fund distributors. CAB who fulfil an essential role in the Charity world, need money for administrative duties, for offices and telephones and such like. The Royal British Legion requires money to support claimants with a myriad of needs, so they are reliant on the Benevolent Charities mainly from within the Armed Services. Funds are distributed to claimants through regional RBL offices whose manager is usually salaried at about £30K per annum. The Soldiers, Sailors and Air Force Families Association works on a similar base to the RBL but with one enormous difference, the relationship between the caseworker and the client used to be sacrosanct and once a case finished the papers were sealed and held in a vault for inspection by qualified auditors. Unfortunately that relationship has been destroyed in Lancashire because of the interference by ne’er-do-wells and the gross incompetence of Central Office in London. Caseworkers, who receive no fiduciary rewards for their endeavours, have left in their droves and Ssafa Lancashire now no longer functions with any real effect. Years of trust built up between Social Services and Ssafa have evaporated, yet Ssafa still has not the courage to talk to their own caseworkers and listen to what is happening on the ground. The reliance on ‘personalities’ who have talked themselves into positions of responsibility on false resumes and idle boasting may reverberate well in the corridors of the Charities and Councils, but it does nothing for those in need. This is exactly what seems to have happened in Haringey and, I have no doubt, in most council’s in Britain.

The irony of it all is that no-one really cares. Those few, who genuinely do care, like M/s Nevres Kemal, will probably never be heard. The system stinks and will be protected by the pen pushers more concerned with their jobs than battered children.

So how can I marry the charities with social work? Simple! 1 in 5 inmates in our prisons, we are informed, are former servicemen. Along with their malfeasance comes a mass up stored up problems. Alcoholism and homelessness is rife amongst old soldiers. With theses problems are the ancillary troubles of broken marriages, family abuses and neglect. An average caseworker can, and ought to be able to spot these problems in an instance. Not from some taught seminar at Loughborough College, but from a lifetime of experience dealing with all types of people. How each caseworker deals with each case is a matter of the support given by his charity, or to the extent he/she thinks he can go alone to help a family in need. On every claim form is - because invariably there is a monetary element - a disclaimer or otherwise that the caseworker has to fill in and sign. Whereas CAB will give advice out on what information a client has provided, a caseworker raising funds for a client has to be more circumspect because of the chance of being drawn into fraudulent activity.

Each section of society has evolved a vocabulary, procedures and protocols to attain an end result; it is all irrelevant and over the heads of children and often their not very literate parents. Conference with these parents might as well be held in Swahili or Ndebele for all the client understands. One enormous benefit seen is where a council has allowed a client to have a friend- the caseworker from a charity – to act with the family in the numerous case discussions that Councils undertake. It is not like asking the villains to mind the Crown jewels, because, believe it or not, both Social Services and Charities have the same aim in mind. Whether this aim is achievable is subject to certain conditions. a/ Whether a Social Care worker has the authority/personality to help a case progress, or whether that Agency has the wisdom to listen to the person closest to each case, the caseworker. When Charity case workers are sought from outside agencies - agencies that will lessen the burden on the Council funds - there can be a mutual meeting of minds to facilitate the council’s legal obligations to the client’s requirements. The usual bottleneck of case notes being heaped on supervisory staff can, and often are, eliminated because the financial pressure is released from the Council and they, in turn, can concentrate on the welfare of the family and children. From personal experience I have not yet met a Social Care worker who has not done other than an excellent job when this occurs.

Ssafa, it seems, appear to be more interested in the social niceties of their annual events than their manifesto promise to speedily deal with each case as it arises, or that has to be one interpretation perceived when it moves out of London for its annual AGM. Where the Ssafa caseworker was unique amongst peers was that he/she ran the case from conception to finish. There was no need to seek implicit advice from local management because that would dilute the confidentiality of caseworker /client relationship. This only worked well if local offices did not impose divisional secretaries with ideas above their station. Div Secs trying to advice retired GP’s on how to run cases was a sure recipe for disaster.

In the cases of former soldier’s children, a different voice, one the client CLEARLY understands, has shown to be a great asset in Social Service’s rehabilitation of MoD’s failures. When the MoD has abandoned their charges, usually those who have succumbed to drugs or alcohol dependency, they also abandon their obligation to the children. When Ssafa dares to hide behind the maxim that… “the caseworker has taken on something that is outside of his/her remit…” it gives authority for others to make the same crass statements being made in this case in London, and sadly the case of the murdered children in Manchester. When a caseworker, irrespective of what organisation he works for, goes into such an environment that makes procedural etiquette irrelevant, then, for me and most sensible folk, intervention is not only appropriate but essential. It is the daily re-enactment of the Good Samaritan. Why this epistle cannot be burned into the brains of the establishment is beyond reasonable comment. For her pains M/s Nevres Kemal has a legal gagging order. Ssafa tried something similar with one of its hard working caseworkers and failed, even though the Charities Commission refuse to accept there is need to investigate????

Baby P cannot be identified. Baby P is dead. Give this little boy one last piece of humanity and call him by his name. If Councils cannot afford to care for our children, then how do they afford to pay for homosexual rights, lesbian awareness, Bangladeshi rooms, multi-lingual publications, three monthly broadsheets that are never read, staff that contribute nothing to society as a whole and the Borough in particular and a myriad of other worthless cost beside????