'The CSCI stated their findings were "mixed",' reports Liberal Democrat Cllr. Julia Fletcher. 'The report finds some good practice in the service, particularly in the overall direction and strategy. However, it also uncovers a host of problems at operational level.

'This is an area of the Council which is stretched - costs are rising and staff are under pressure. There appears to be poor communication between frontline staff and senior management. Staff are not receiving adequate information and training, to allow them to implement the strategy for the service.

'The CSCI have highlighted many areas where administrative procedures are sloppy. They said that while some social work was good, some was "not so good". In particular, they raised concerns about both the quality of assessments and the time taken to complete them.

'This is not an area of the Council's work that is often at the front of people's minds and is not often a vote-winner. However, we believe that the safety of children is of paramount importance. If we are to avoid the risk of the scandals we have seen elsewhere, the Council cannot afford to get it "half-right".

'Less emphasis should be put on meeting targets and more on improving the flow of information within the department.

'It is important they resolve these issues quickly. Promising to start necessary training programmes and work out how to meet statutory requirements by December - nearly a year after the inspection - does not look like haste.

'As a responsible Opposition, we should acknowledge the good points of this report, but also keep pressure on the Council to sort out the problems. Similarly, the Council has a duty not just to accept praise but also to be open about its failings.

'The Cabinet can no longer blindly assume that their grand pronouncements will result in a high quality service.'

END

June 2004






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Background Notes

The Commission for Social Care Inspection gave a presentation based on the findings of their inspection to Mayor & Cabinet on Wednesday 24 June. This was accompanied by a report from council officers which listed the CSCI's recommendations and the actions the Council proposed to take to address these; this officers' report can be seen http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/CouncilMeetings/Committees_post0502/MayorAndCabinet/documents/Jun2004/myr_cab_ag_23june04.doc or http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/CouncilMeetings/Committees_post0502/MayorAndCabinet/documents/Jun2004/myr_cab_ag_23june04.pdf

The inspection was carried out in January, when the CSCI was called the Social Services Inspectorate (SSI).

The inspection report, published on 9 June, contained 24 recommendations and 25 areas for development. Copies of the full report can be obtained from:

Social Services Inspectorate - London
Department of Health
Eileen House
80/94 Newington Causeway
London
SE1 6EF

Telephone 020 7972 2000

¨ Recommendation 16 was that "A strategy for meeting the statutory timescales for completing initial and core assessments should be developed". (Our emphasis.) The actions proposed to meet this included "Develop Action Plan to ensure teams meet statutory timescales for completion of assessments", which had a target date of December 2004. The CSCI pointed out at the Mayor & Cabinet meeting that initial assessments should be made within 7 days and that it was essential that they were made both promptly and accurately.

¨ Several recommendations and areas for development related to administrative procedures. R22 stated that "Core assessments were rarely evidenced in files" and it was pointed out that "not all files had case chronologies". The CSCI also found that the current case file structure did not ensure that information on the front was accurate and that documents were clearly signed and dated and correctly filed.

¨ R12 pointed out that "Recruitment difficulties were having an adverse impact on service delivery". The action plan to deal with this acknowledged that part of the problem was retention, although the timescale to tackle this was given as April 2005. This also seems to be part of the reason that "There were 25 unallocated looked after children in the leaving care team".

¨ With such problems, social workers face a lot of pressure. The inspectors' report states that "The service unit manager for the Intake, Assessment and Hospital service recognised that the service as configured was unable to deal effectively with the volume of work." This issue was highlighted by Cllr. Fletcher in a question to Council on 21 April, which can be seen at http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/CouncilMeetings/Committees_post0502/FullCouncil/documents/Apr2004/full_cncl_membersques_21apr04.doc (question no. 5) The inspectors' report goes on to describe a proposal that was being circulated at the time of the inspection for restructuring the service to deal with this problem.

¨ R11 stated that "Social workers lacked knowledge of what services they were able to offer" - the CSCI believed that they needed to be better informed, so that they could "knit together better care packages".

¨ While statistics on the service, such as Performance Indicators, look good the CSCI did not find evidence that this reflected operational procedures. Often, overall strategy was not permeating down through the organisation.

¨ The Executive Director of Social Care and Health, Zena Peatfield, told the meeting that she was not yet confident that practices are "safe". The CSCI stated that in some cases they believed children to be at risk, although they found that they at least got a prompt response when they reported problems to senior managers.

¨ Four recommendations also related to equalities issues and poor ethnic monitoring in the service.

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