Dumfries & Galloway social workers dispute plan’s progress

SOCIAL work staff have raised major doubts over the recovery of their department – nearly three years after a damning inspection.

A report discussed by councillors at a meeting yesterday said “steady progress” was being made on an action plan to meet the 24 tough recommendations for change made in the September 2006 Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA) document.

But a letter from the UNISON trade union produced at the same meeting said that claim was “overly optimistic”.

It added: “As a general point, we think the report and action plan are very light on actual evidence that elected members would benefit from having for scrutiny purposes.”

The action plan says senior social work managers would be meeting with and visiting frontline staff in a bid to improve morale and make them feel more involved.

But the UNISON letter goes on: “We would question whether the intended effect of these visits matches to any great extent the impact they have had on staff.

“Many feel that it is a tick in the box exercise and that the meetings have been more about ‘being told’ and not a two-way exchange.

“Some have come away from these meetings even more demoralised than they were beforehand.”

The letter closed by saying that changes will only be made in the department when staff “are empowered to deliver services to vulnerable people in Dumfries and Galloway unhindered by red tape and an inherent, long developed, blame culture within social work locally”.

Councillors met yesterday to approve the latest stage of the improvement plan before the update was sent to officials in SWIA.

Labour councillors tried to either have that submission deferred for scrutiny of the issues raised in the UNISON letter or to have the union letter sent with the improvement plan.

But their proposal was voted against.

Labour councillor Willie Scobie said: “For this council to send this action plan there could be a case for us to be accused of not scrutinising this.

“We should be deferring this report for further consultation with the trade unions so they can give us the benefit of their evidence so that we can scrutinise it.”

However, it was revealed that the letter had also been submitted to a social work committee on April 21, and other members felt it had been considered enough.

Tory councillor Gail MacGregor said: “I don’t want to sound over optimistic but this is an improving situation.

“When SWIA came back they said things were improving.”

In a response to the union letter, director of social work John Alexander said it “played down” the progress made and that he was “upbeat about the distance travelled since SWIA’s first inspection in 2006.”