Following the damning report by OFSTED in to children’s services across the council’s jurisdiction, an employee (acting on behalf of other employees) has blown the whistle on what they perceive is the reality of the situation.
OFSTED visit
This letter was sent to BCP council following a visit by OFSTED and has led to widespread condemnation from across the demographic at the way BCP have handled children’s services especially since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
To appreciate the full context of the situation it is a letter best read in its entirety.
Response:
As an outcome of publishing this letter it has lead to a widespread response. Part of this response has come from those working within the service who wish to make it clear from their experiences and perspective what is taking place:
‘To introduce ourselves, we are a group of social workers and support staff who are employed by BCP Children’s Services. We are contacting you anonymously due to the constant fear and threats from our management teams of what will happen if we speak the truth about what’s happening
Firstly, we want to apologise. We want to say that we are sorry that children aren’t being safeguarded adequately and also, that the council is spending so much money while it fails so miserably. What we are not sorry for though is trying our absolute hardest in awful conditions and we’re sorry that the efforts of some were not noticed by Ofsted. It is not acceptable and we do not want to be working like this. We came into this profession to support and protect children and their families – we are not being allowed to do this.
At the point that the councils merged we raised our concerns – even then we were already understaffed and we knew we would suddenly have bigger geographical areas to cover stretching an already depleted workforce further. We had three groups of staff coming together that were used to three different ways of working, management and processes. Leaders knew this and they knew there would be challenges, but for those of us on the ground we saw no efforts to address these concerns. Senior Management now have one style – they rule with fear, a lack of respect or regard and there is no sense of compassion. Staff are leaving in their droves because they feel unsafe, unsupported and underpaid. There are approximately 50 Social Worker vacancies in BCP CS however if you look on the website there are none advertised. If you look at agencies they are offering contracts with BCP CS for £51k, the average starting salary is £26k in the UK. So when Ofsted said that there were 55 agency staff (we think included in this total are the consultants – we will come onto them shortly) given we are paying double the going rate, we could actually have 110 Social Workers. The irony is that despite being paid extremely well (one agency staff member informed us that BCP are paying over the odds for agency staff at the moment), even agency staff are not staying for long because of the working conditions.
BCP CS have brought in numerous consultants. Our understanding is that this is to improve our service and therefore there are additional to the number of Senior Management posts. As a workforce we do not see that they have added any value or improved how we work. Some have been here since early this year. If failings were flagged in September (on or around the time the Director left, without working her notice) why were these consultants allowed to stay as they had not made any difference in their first 6 months? Consultants have come in and changed things then either left or been ‘promoted’ to newly created posts that have not been advertised. In their place comes another consultant who makes more changes – and the cycle is repeated again. We are confused by the constant changes and waste time trying to navigate these when we should be working with familes. If Social Workers are being paid £51k then what are those at higher levels being paid? With the exception of a few, Senior Management posts and above are all being held by agency workers. The Head of Social Care has been absent since the Ofsted visit and the Head of Family and Inclusion (Education, Early Help, SEN) has also left without working his notice. These posts are now being filled by interims.
As workers we want to do our best for vulnerable families. We are tired and demoralised but for those of us not off on long term sick we keep turning up. We are frightened – we are frightened that our tiredness means we will miss something and a child may get hurt, we are frightened that we will be criticised because our work is ‘out of time’ and we are frightened that if we speak out, we will be pushed out. We are all working over and above our contracted hours. We do not get paid for these and we do not take the time back as ‘flexi’ because our workload does not allow for it. We are unable to attend training because there is too much work to do – how will we improve if we do not have the opportunity? We are ticking boxes but not making a difference. Our most vulnerable children are being seen by a different social worker for every ‘statutory home visit’. Apart from saying that we have seen the child what else can we say that we have done? Families are not getting the support and assistance that they need to make changes to keep the children safe. Senior Leaders are more focused on timescales than quality and safety of children which is why managers were signing off assessments that had blank boxes – because they needed to get them signed off in time or they would be criticised. Families get repeatedly referred back – that is because Senior Leaders want our timescales to look good and things dealt with by the MASH within 24hrs. If we let things go out of time, it is because we need more information to make informed decisions – this is across the whole service – or actually it is because we do not have enough staff for the amount of work. Yes, we know delay is unacceptable if a child is at immediate risk (and Ofsted noted that in these cases we responded in a timely manner) but we would rather be criticised by Ofsted for not meeting timescales than because children are not safe. It feels that our Senior Leaders have lost sight of that.
Social Workers know that they are not offering a good service to families and that is why they are often passed to Early Help because we think they will get a better service there. But that means, as Ofsted noted, that families in Early Help should not be there because the level of risk is too high. The reality is though that Early Help has now been caught up in the same bureaucracy as Social Care and they now have timescales to manage referrals and timescales to complete assessments. There are just 30 workers to support families that need Early Help for the whole of BCP.
We know that we are in a mess, we knew that before Ofsted arrived and were glad that they have been very clear about the failings as were at a point of whistle blowing. We need an Improvement Plan that staff are included in. We need Senior Leaders and Managers to allow us to voice our concerns and opinions without fear of repercussions. We need to be fully staffed and staff need to feel valued. Staff need to be able to go on training. Staff should only be working the hours that they are paid to do. We would ask BCP to share how much has been spent on agency staff in the last year and what the projected expenditure is for the next 12 months. Tax payers have a right to know but so do the workforce so that we can understand how many colleagues we could have sat alongside us, working with vulnerable families, rather than above us.
We would ask you to be patient with us – for those of us still here it is because we know this will get better but more importantly because we worry what will happen to the families we are working with if we leave.
BCP Children’s Services Staff’
For the staff it appears that the Ofsted response has been a blessing. It has finally brought to light what they feared would remain hidden from view. A culture of fear, low morale, a lack of resources, poor management and ultimately an idaquate service for those who are the primary concern i.e the children….
For their part BCP council have responded thus:
