Post Comment: Mr Tucker and the bed of nails
If Birmingham Children’s Social Care director Colin Tucker was in any doubt about the size of the task he faced when appointed just over a year ago, he will most certainly understand by now why his is a job for which the words “bed of nails” could be described as putting it mildly.
Mr Tucker promised a great deal when he arrived. A man with a reputation for talking the talk, he impressed the city council’s political leadership with passionate rhetoric about delivering the best possible service for children at risk of physical and sexual abuse, recruiting more social workers, training them properly, and crucially getting them out into the field and ensuring they are not bogged down by administration and undue levels of incompetent management.
It is now time, following a second damning Ofsted report exposing social services’ many failings, for Mr Tucker to show that he can walk the walk. He must at least be praised for honesty and for having the courage to seriously consider taking the ultimate responsibility for continuing failure by resigning.
His political masters were right to insist that he remained in post, for his instincts are right. He recognises and accepts that Birmingham is a long way from being able to say that it has well-trained teams of social workers, candidly describing some assessments into children at risk as “woeful” and admitting that staff who were sacked ought not to have been allowed anywhere near children.
This will not endear Mr Tucker to most people in the council hierarchy, where the denial culture remains a prominent feature. Indeed, it came as no great surprise to learn that the council’s first reaction on receiving a draft copy of the Ofsted report was to attempt to negotiate a watered down version. To the watchdog’s great credit, no quarter was given and the finding that children’s safeguarding services are inadequate continues to stand.
The problems facing Mr Tucker are so severe that it is impossible to feel anything other than sympathy. A national shortage of social workers is felt acutely in Birmingham, where referrals of children at risk run at about 25,000 a year. At the same time efforts to streamline and bring in a new management structure are being frustrated because, unsurprisingly in the circumstances, people of the highest calibre are not immediately attracted to the idea of putting their necks on the line in Birmingham.
Pressure on the department is certain to grow over the next few weeks in the aftermath of a serious case review into the death of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq. The lessons to be learned report, which is likely to criticise social services, education officials and the police, is bound to receive widespread publicity and that in itself will push up referrals from the public of children thought to be at risk, throwing yet more work at a failing unit.
The brutal truth is that Mr Tucker’s three-year estimate to transform children’s social care in Birmingham depends on so many factors outside of his control – social worker recruitment, rate of referrals, commitment of the staff to change – that it is almost naively optimistic.
