‘Broken’ social work department accused of failing city children

EDUCATION leader Marilyne MacLaren has branded the council’s social work department “broken” amid fresh evidence of it failing dozens of vulnerable children in the city.

Nearly 180 youngsters in care have not been allocated a social worker, which is one of the council’s statutory responsibilities.

The department is now undergoing a “radical review” to address these major problems, with changes set to be introduced by the end of October.

Councillor MacLaren told the education, children and families committee that the city’s vulnerable children must come first and the “sad history of mismanagement” must be reversed.

She said: “We have a system that is broken and it has been broken for a long while.

“That’s what social workers said to me when I came into post, ‘You have to change this’.

“It is a fact that at the moment we are not completely fulfilling our statutory responsibility.

“It’s not fair for the 178 children who are in care not to have an allocated social worker. It is a piece of nonsense.”

The council’s priority is to ensure that it meets all of its statutory requirements, which include allocating a social worker to all children in care and on the Child Protection Register, reviewing children in care within set timescales and providing reports to the Children’s Reporter within 20 days of a request being made.

Gillian Tee, director of education, children and families, said: “There is broad consensus that the current arrangements in relation to children’s social work services need to change.

“Referrals are increasing markedly, there is difficulty meeting some statutory responsibilities and insufficient focus on preventative services for children and families.

“There is need for a radical review of how resources are used and how the service is organised.”

She said the review was also designed to strengthen leadership, provide preventative family support for children at risk of being put into care or being excluded from school, and to ease staff workloads.

Twelve managerial positions will be lost through voluntary redundancy and redeployment.

But Green councillor Alison Johnstone said: “It’s imperative that every child in our care does have a social worker and it is a grave concern to me that they don’t. I’m not entirely convinced that this reorganisation is going to help that.

“We should be asking for more money instead of stretching the budget as far as it can go.”

Dawe says respect the social workers

In her monthly leader’s report, Councillor Dawe said: “Child protection is an area where finely balanced decisions require to be taken and where, sadly, there is sometimes no margin for error.

“Social workers on the front line have to deal with difficult circumstances and take agonising decisions on a daily basis.

“Social workers perform an admirable role in protecting the most vulnerable in our society. They are, however, a profession which can be subject to castigation and vilification on a completely different scale to most other roles in life.

“It is too simplistic to round on social workers when issues arise. Where crimes are committed, the culpability and guilt lie with the person who perpetrated the crime, and not with the social work department or the police.

“As a society we need to take some responsibility for the scourge of drugs and alcohol and the underlying problems that create danger to our children in the first place.

“Glasgow University has estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 children in Scotland live with at least one drug-addicted parent. This figure puts into context the extent of the challenge in protecting children.”