The Emperor’s new clothes of social work reform

Sometimes something shiny and new is in fact acting as a thin veneer of change that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny… and is often temporary.

This is the ‘emperor’s new clothes’ of social work reform: well meaning, but ultimately flawed, it often emanates from the tragic deaths of abused children. In the Hans Christian Andersen parable, it took a young boy to burst the emperor’s bubble by pointing out the metaphorical clothes don’t exist.

In the late 90s, the tragic death of Victoria Climbie led to the introduction of a high volume of standards. These quickly became a series of apparently unachievable aspirations. 

In the team I worked in at the time, our esteemed director decided that standards would improve if social workers stopped wearing jeans to work. Colleagues became nervous about walking past her office in anything vaguely resembling denim.

Victoria's death also led to some manic behaviour from senior managers, who took to screaming in the office that any case with an element of risk would be the next Climbie. It was hard for everyone not to become a slave to timescales. 

The attractiveness of timescales is that they are easy to measure, and give the authorities the chance to crow about something, plus the onus is on workers to comply, rather than address underlying issues.

I moved authorities in 2009 to a newly formed duty and assessment team. The area's reputation had been battered by the media following a tsunami of serious case reviews. Long-serving workers were leaving in droves.The new senior management team actively squeezed the frontliners out, too - they were scapegoated as the problem. Too vocal, too unionised and too challenging of the new order. 

Following Baby Peter, the government published the Monroe report. Dawn, my new service manager in duty and assessment, clutched it exclaiming: "Have you read it? Everything's going to change." 

Outwardly personable and buoyant, she’d been nicknamed the 'Smiling Assassin'. One evening I found her crying in her office saying she never saw her young kids. Being cynical and ambitious, she appeared to embrace Munroe’s recommendations solely to advance her career. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this. 

Monroe’s review had rightly pushed for a move towards focusing on the development of professional expertise. Dawn seemed to genuinely believe in this but simultaneously drove out the very experts who were central to the review's key premise. Sadly the optimism didn't last long. This was at a time when assessments had to be completed within rigid timescales. 

I succumbed to the pressure like everyone else. Cycling home shattered after another chaotic, adrenaline fuelled day I hit a deep pot hole badly, fracturing my elbow. My medical consultant advised me to have seven weeks off to fully recover. I insisted he sign me back as fit for work after three. I didn't have time to explain the compliance culture or the fact that any perceived failure to meet timescales would come straight back on me, despite having been in hospital.

The Crime and Disorder Act vowed to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”. 

One of the interventions I became responsible for was an intensive supervision programme. The area I worked in had been the national pilot. The enthusiastic manager had charged round the country selling the project.

We made The Guardian newspaper showcased by a photo of an Asian kid, a heavily-set Black police officer and a white youth worker. It symbolised multi-agency and multi-ethnic working. The lad was held up as a success story. Unfortunately, soon after he was sentenced to eight years for armed robbery. 

The Black police officer didn't fare so well either. He proudly recounted how he'd taken down a notorious adult offender with a bin lid. The white worker was subsequently dismissed for inappropriate sexualised and deviant behaviour. 

A further difficulty existed in that there was no substance to the project - the epitome of new clothes. Following the coverage, I received calls from all over the country asking how we'd achieved such glowing success. I'm not sure why, but I felt a bit guilty to be associated with the charade.

In the 2000s, Every Child Matters was a well meaning attempt to reform children’s social care based on five key aspirations. I was interviewed by a director who'd been ousted by her previous authority for her part in the failure to tackle chronic child exploitation.

She asked me to list the five and I missed one. She told me not to worry as everyone usually did this. It felt like tokenistic rhetoric. I later found out she was being paid as a consultant, despite no longer being registered. She'd worked round this by claiming she wasn't practising and through having friends in high places.

Fifteen years on from Monroe, workers are spending the vast majority of their day on case recording rather than face-to face-work. I’m not sure how families benefit from such a raft of information being on file. Surely practical or theraputic interventions would be more beneficial. However, these don't really cover the desperation to appease Ofsted.

The backlog of referrals prior to ‘reform’ was clearly not acceptable but at least there was more opportunity for reflective discussion and proportionate responses. I strongly believe fewer children came into care as a result. Surely there should be capacity for both reflection and reasonable response times?

I acknowledge that managers are put under incredible pressure to meet targets at risk of losing their jobs. Successive governments, regardless of their political persuasion, have failed to address these issues, despite the numerous expert recommendations to the contrary over the years.

It shouldn’t take an innocent  little boy to spot the fallacy of the new clothes. Social workers should instead have the confidence to mount an ethical challenge.

Sam Waterhouse is a newly retired social worker who spent most his career working in the south of England