Social Workers Close To Strike Action Over Job Cuts ‘Meltdown’
Social workers at a Scottish council previously condemned over child protection failures will consider strike action tonight over fears that new job cut plans could put youngsters at “greater risk than ever before”.
An emergency meeting of staff at Edinburgh Council’s children and families social work service will discuss proposals to halve the number of key frontline senior social workers responsible for co-ordinating child protection and “looked after” children work.
Unison, which called the meeting, said that vulnerable children were already at increased risk because the council has failed to meet an earlier promise to ensure that the number of youngsters on any social worker’s casebook was reduced from 19 to no more than 14. Instead the union claimed that the council’s 143 front-line social workers currently look after almost 4000 child protection cases – giving staff on average 28 cases each, double the recommended level that the council committed to in the wake of the high-profile Victoria Climbie inquiry in 2003.
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Union officials fear that the latest planned job losses, reducing the number of frontline co-ordinators from six to three, will cause service “meltdown”.
Today’s fears follow heavy criticism of the council over the death of 11-week-old Caleb Ness, who was shaken to death by his brain-damaged father in Edinburgh in 2001 after social workers sent him home with his recovering drug addict mother.
The O’Brien Inquiry into the case highlighted failings “at almost every level” in the child protection system and led to a major shake-up of the local authority’s social work department.
Yesterday Tom Connolly, Unison branch service conditions officer, said all of the progress made since that inquiry was “at risk from these plans”.
He said: “These frontline staff are the people who have held the service together for years, often despite the council, and certainly without the resources to do the job.
“Without them, the service could face meltdown.”
He added: “It looks like the council has told the public it is putting more resources in, while in reality it hasn’t backed it up with the cash.
“On top of this, two recent inspections point to not enough cases being allocated and not enough resources to protect children. Instead of addressing the resources, the council is increasing demands on staff.
“Many of our members feel things are getting worse than they have ever been and more risky than they have ever been.”
Referring to the broken promise on caseload limits, Agnes Petkevicius, Edinburgh branch secretary, said: “The council seems determined not to learn from inquiries or inspections and that beggars belief.”
Council leader Jenny Dawe said that child protection services remained a “top priority” for the authority and said that there was “no intention” of cutting front-line services.
