Michael Gove has surpassed himself in his ability to prove himself to be a callous, money-grabbing, disregarder of the needs of children yet again. If we thought his attacks on the local, democratic accountability of community schools were not enough, his department has proposed the privatisation of Child Protection services, including the power to remove children from their families.
If these plans were to go ahead, the most vulnerable people in society would be reliant on services which are subject to the vagaries of the market. Prof Ray Jones of Kingston University states that G4S and Serco have been trying to get into these services for a long time and have so far been thwarted. He and over 30 other child protection academics and professionals are challenging Gove’s plans.
In a Radio interview on Saturday 17th May, Amanda Kelly, a Public Sector Consultant, and spokesperson for Gove’s plans, said that this move is needed in order to provide fresh and innovative thinking into the provision of a jaded service. When asked for an example she said, in a stunningly stupid and insulting statement, that the problem at the moment is that Social Workers spend too much time on the computer rather than putting the needs of the child at the centre of what they do.
The lament of every social worker is the amount of paper work they are obliged to do which takes them away from the very reason they took on the job in the first place – the child. The culture for many SWs and other CP practitioners is that everything they do has to be written down in case there is an inspection or challenge. Everything they do is carried out with one eye over the shoulder ie. away from the child. This is not caused by the fact that CP services are under Local Authority control but by the blame culture imposed by a government out to attack local services in order to make cuts and by the sensationalist coverage of individual cases in the press which generate a sense of fear and panic.
Privatisation of Childrens Services would not change this. On the contrary, it would be a weapon in the arsenal of a management which wants a flexible, deskilled and underpaid workforce in a service run for profit rather than public good. The management style of G4S in schools caretaking service has shown many examples of bullying and anti union practices.
This has nothing to do with ‘fresh’ or ‘innovatory’ thinking. It is as old as bosses ever employed workers and long pre-dates the existence of social services. This is part of a wider government plan to remove services from Local Authorities, end local community control, reduce budgets, install private financing and, in the process, has the added benefit for them of atomising the workforce which then cannot fight effectively for better wages and conditions or for the services they provide.
Gove’s plans are being challenged by professionals who say that Local Authorities must not be forced to hand over services to outsourced companies. This challenge must be taken up by the unions and community users of the services that are so vital for very vulnerable people and must be widened to fighting the cuts budgets being passed through council chambers
