Blame games make the job of a DCS untenable
Derren Hayes
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Last Friday, the Reading Post published a story about how children's services in the town received only one application for each of the three senior social worker jobs it advertised. On the same day, the Coventry Telegraph reported that 30 demonstrators had gathered outside the city's town hall calling for more action to be taken against the agencies involved in the Daniel Pelka case.
Are the two stories linked? Certainly, Reading Council thinks so – a spokesperson for it blamed high-profile serious case reviews (SCR), such as Daniel's, as being a factor behind the poor recruitment response.
Certainly, the damaging impact that high-profile child protection tragedies has on the morale and appeal of the profession is hard to deny. The effects are seen right across the sector: from low applicant rates for social worker vacancies, to high turnover rates for senior managers.
The analysis for our special report into directors of children's services (DCSs) lays bare the full extent to which children's leaders are vulnerable to paying the price of failure with their job.
Leadership changes have taken place in nine local authorities since July, and are on top of the 52 DCSs – a third of the total – who changed jobs in 2012/13. And if anything, the problem is getting worse. Since 2008, following the conviction of the killers of Baby Peter Connelly, the turnover rate has gradually crept up from one in five, to one in four, to one in three.
Of course, not all of these DCS moves were due to child protection failings or any other problems. But continuity of leadership is so important for establishing a culture of success and stability, and it is almost impossible to foster that with a turnover rate of a third.
And with the current SCR system seemingly designed to apportion blame rather than ensure mistakes are learned from and not repeated, it seems inevitable that DCSs – with whom the buck ultimately stops – will continue to pay the price when tragedy happens on their watch.
No one is arguing that DCSs should not be responsible for the work of their staff, but the balance between accountability and scapegoating feels like it is skewed too much towards the latter at this current moment in time.
While this may be reflected in lower applications for social worker jobs, it could also result in fewer talented children's professionals being prepared to put themselves forward for leadership, despite the boost this may bring to their career.
Such a scenario could lead to a smaller pool of talent from which to choose prospective DCSs, which cannot be good for developing the innovative thinking and management that future children's services leaders will need as they grapple with doing more with less.
As Sharon Shoesmith - who knows better than most about the damage a child protection furore can do to your career – says in our special report: "If people asked me, I'd probably say, don't become a DCS until you are 55 and don't stay more than two or three years."
As a blueprint for the future of DCSs, it is not a hopeful one.