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UNISON CITY OF EDINBURGH BRANCH SUBMISSION TO THE CITY OF EDINBURGH COUNCIL MEETING 18 MARCH 2004 Item No. 8.2 Click here for Council papers referred to when they are published on City of Edinburgh Website 8.2(a) Council review 2007: Organisation and Management of Social Work Services. UNISON has already provided a detailed response to the consultation, has given evidence to the Scrutiny Panel and has provided a full report on our consultation exercise with our members in the Social Work, Education and Housing Departments. We are currently consulting among our voluntary sector membership. The vast majority of our members (over 95%) support some change but do not consider that the Chief Executive's preferred options will deliver the changes required to address issues arising from previous inquiries and from Scottish Executive guidance. The most recent Scottish Executive report (January 2004) point to integrated joint working rather than mergers of departments. To avoid the misconception that we are starting from a blank page in terms of joint working, UNISON would want to ensure that members are aware of existing intiatives involving co-location of Education and Social Work staff, Working Together intitiatives, work with the Health Service via Joint Future, joint programmes with the Housing Department and joint training with the police in child protection investigations, to name but a few. UNISON believes that any review of services needs to be based on what has been shown to work and on evidenced outcomes. We believe that points towards maintaining a Social Work Department while building on existing and new joint initiatives. The key in child protection is co-ordination between agencies via, for example, a strengthened child protection committee at strategic as well as local/neighbourhood practitioner level to facilitate actual rather than 'paper' working together. UNISON welcomes the level of consultation within the Social Work Department but is concerned that this was not as extensive in Housing or Education. We continue to believe that the timescales for change are far too tight and are completely unrealistic if wholesale organisational change is envisaged. 8.2 (b) Overview of Developments and Recommendations for the Social Work Department UNISON welcomes the progress made on the issues outlined in this report. However it would wish to point out that many of the issues covered had already been started before the O'Brien report. We are not sure what the reference to 'change of culture' means, especially in light of what is said in Item 8.2(c) Paras 3.12 to 3.25 in terms of the balance between parents' and children's rights. We would wish to discuss this in further detail. We welcome the clear statement on working with risk. 8.2(d) Children & Families Social Work Practice Team Staffing and Risk Management UNISON broadly welcomes this report which starkly outlines the reality for staff attempting to deliver such a crucial service with growing staff shortages which have been at critical level for some time. Particularly helpful is the clarification of statutory duties and a clear statement that all that requires to be done cannot be done in the current resource context. UNISON re-iterates its position that any enhancement to salaries and conditions needs to be equitably and fairly applied. We reaffirm our view that the only long term solution is a national review of salaries, training and resources but recognise that local measures will also be required in the interim. We will therefore be seeking to enter discussions on comprehensive measures across social care provision in Edinburgh.
8.2 (e) Protecting Children in Edinburgh UNISON congratulates the Social Work Department on this comprehensive and well evidenced document which clarifies some of the myths which arose from the O'Brien Inquiry and puts child protection plans firmly in a legal, professional and research context. To UNISON's knowledge, this is the first document of its kind in Scotland to pull all of these issues together and provides a model for planning on the basis of evidence and proven outcomes. We are however concerned about one aspect and that is the creation of dedicated child protection managers. Our concern is that, within the current limited pool of suitably qualified staff, there is a risk that recruits for these posts will come from the existing pool of operational managers. This would place even more pressure on the delivery of child protection services and create even higher unallocated caseloads. UNISON would seek an assurance that there will be full consultation on this issue.
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