Social workers should regulate social work
Guardian Public had a nice interview with Rodney Brooke, the guy who’s just stood down as the first chair of the General Social Care Council, a worthy of local government, perhaps, judging from the interview, the source of the ’steady as she goes’ style of the GSCC.
Not to worry though, the musical chairs in chairpersonships of public bodies has brought in someone else who says she knows nothing about social work: why is it better to have both a chairperson and a chief executive who have no background in what they’re regulating? Surely at least if one hasn’t, the other should.
After all, the Laming report on how child protection is going comments that where you have a director of children’s services who knows nothing about social work practice, you should have a senior person who does. Not a principle they’re noticeably following at the GSCC, where it’s pretty light on social workers in senior positions.
It’s all a sign of the continuing influence of the claim of private sector business managers that anyone can manage anything, even if they don’t know a lot about it. Perhaps this view will change, now that it’s been shown not to work in banks.
Dudman, J. (2009) This charming man. Guardian Public January 2009: 10.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I can’t remember the exact figures now but last year I was looking into how many of the board of the GSCC were social workers – there are a large proportion of ‘lay’ members and the social workers tended to be social work lecturers or managers. I think it’s a shame that some of the front line contact work is lost to the GSCC – the fact that neither the chairperson or chief executive have backgrounds in social work speaks volumes about the profession. Would nurses or doctors stand for the same kind of approach from laymen (which are necessary of course but not at the expense of a proportion of actual social workers who have recent and relevant working experience).