New Clause 2
Children and Young Persons Bill [Lords]
9:00 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Welcome back to the Chair for the last leg of this Committee, Mr. Pope. So far it has been conducted in an exceedingly amenable, friendly and constructive manner. I am sure that today will be no exception. However, as we are likely to be interrupted this afternoon by a number of votes and a number of new clauses have been tabled by hon. Members across the Committee, I will try to get through those in my name as quickly as possible this morning.
New clause 2 proposes the creation of the post of chief social worker. It resulted from the Conservative party commission on social workers that I chaired and which reported last October. That commission has been mentioned in the Committee several times. As everybody knows, we have a chief medical officer, who is currently Sir Liam Donaldson. He appears frequently on the media as the face of the health service who advises the Secretary of State. We also have a chief veterinary officer. Many people will remember Debby Reynolds, the former holder of that post, who is a little more familiar than Nigel Gibbons who took over from her. We do not have a post of chief social worker.
In this Committee, on Second Reading and in other debates, we have touched on the problem that we all acknowledge faces social workers of their perception in the press, the constant torrent of negative stories about them and the lack of reports on their many positive achievements. I have described social workers as potentially the fourth emergency service. They should be viewed as no less important than teachers, police, nurses and doctors. Their work is integral to sustaining vulnerable families, keeping them together and providing crucial support. However, for some reason they do not get the same recognition and respect among the general public.
Too many people view social workers as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. The first contact many people have with social workers is when there is a knock on the door, which may be the beginning of proceedings that lead to a child being taken into care. Many social workers would like to intervene much earlier and work on a preventive basis to keep vulnerable families together. It would be good if they had the opportunity to do that, but this problem exists because of the pressures on the system and the high vacancy rates which are at 20 per cent. in some parts of the country.
Our commission recommended that the Government create the post of chief social worker. To quote from our report, a family barrister, Jessica Lee, who was one of our witnesses, wrote of social workers:
“Due to resource pressures, they are now seen as ‘bad guys’ who only appear to intervene and remove children rather than be able to offer the supportive role that they feel they used to be able to provide to families.”
A representative of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering said:
“Their work demands the deepest understanding into the nature of the human condition and the personal cost to them of doing so can be high. In the public eye, social workers have become too easily identified with the problems of their clients.”
The General Social Care Council stated that
“social work is often seen as the poor relation in a professional world; ‘only 40 per cent. of the population see the contribution of social workers to society as very important’.”
There was plenty of evidence to suggest that there is a problem with the way that social workers are perceived. That will be all too familiar to Committee members who have followed that profession. That inevitably has an impact on their ability to do their job.