Social workers forced to focus too much on compliance, says Munro review

Social work professionals have been forced to focus too much on complying with rules and regulations and so spend less time than they should on assessing children’s needs, Professor Eileen Munro has said.

Commissioned to lead a review of the child protection system in England, the academic also identified concerns about the impact of delays in the family courts on the welfare of children as a significant issue.

Other problems identified by Prof. Munro in her initial analysis include:

• A target-driven culture meaning social workers are unable to exercise their professional judgement
• Too much emphasis on identifying families and not enough attention to putting children’s needs first
• Serious case reviews (SCRs) concentrating only on errors when things have gone wrong, rather than looking at good practice and continually reflecting on what could be done better, and
• Professionals becoming demoralised over time as organisations fail to recognise the emotional impact of the work they do and the support they need.

The report suggested that processes and procedures, as well as the unintentional consequences of previous “well-meaning and well-informed” reforms, were getting in the way of social workers spending time with vulnerable children and families.

The academic highlighted how changes during the last 40 years had often been driven by high-profile cases. They had also looked at parts of the system in isolation, rather than at the system as a whole.

Professor Eileen Munro pointed out that there were “no simple quick-fix solutions” to improving child protection, but called for a less prescriptive system that constantly looks to do things better.

She said: “A key question for the review is why the well-intentioned reforms of the past haven’t worked. Piecemeal changes have resulted in a system where social workers are more focused on complying with procedures.

“Professionals should rightly take responsibility when things go wrong but they need more freedom to make decisions, more support and understanding, and less prescription and censure. Too often social workers are either criticised for breaking up families or for missing a case of abuse. But the system they work in is built around predicting a parent’s ability to look after their child, which is never certain.”

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton welcomed Prof. Munro’s initial findings.

He said: “She has started to expose the underlying causes of what has gone wrong in child protection. I have spent the last week shadowing social workers in an immersive exercise to see what happens at the sharp end. Social workers need to have the confidence to make tough decisions and make a positive difference.”

Prof. Munro is due to submit her final report in April 2011.