No thanks..........

Gulp: http://www.communitycare.co.uk/blogs/childrens-services-blog/2010/07/marion-davis-to-gove-dismantle-the-role-of-independent-sws.html

Wilt feels an earlier than planned ‘early retirement’ might be coming on.

Actually Wilt has always believed that local authority social workers are “experts” in their own right (notwithstanding the occasional idiot) but to totally exclude the option of independents (ISW’s) in the Court system would be both unwise and unworkable. As Wilt has said many times on these pages, it is possible to reduce the number of experts and indeed to be more selective when appointing Guardians – and of course getting rid of Cafcass.

Both Guardians and ISW’s can and do make a very significant difference in terms of their much broader and greater experience. Most often ISW’s (Independent Social Workers) save money by shortening proceedings, despite Marion Davis claiming:

"Removing this role from the family justice system would not only contribute to reducing delays in care proceedings, but would also reduce costs."

In fact as Wilt knows only too well, not infrequently ISW’s are brought in by social services because they lack either the resources or skills. Thus excluding ISW’s would cause more delay.

Very often local authority social workers are not given the “status” they rightly deserve and in that sense ISW’s are drafted in on occasions unnecessarily – that is because inevitably birth parents (etc) demand another opinion and Guardians, who should in appropriate cases challenge, fail to resist the instruction of an ISW. Judges depend greatly on their Guardians – who are hopefully rooted into reality. On occasions Wilt has thought that his appointments were unnecessary – the evidence was already there?

On the other hand, ISW’s play a vital role, not just in terms of expertise and to overcome a lack of resources in the local authority, but also because many social workers actually welcome it, and regrettably on occasions because local authorities are quite simply incompetent.

Yes reduce the number of experts, and Guardians can be more robust in this regard, but Marion Davis has, it seems, attacked the ISW outright as a waste of money. That is not very clever, unwise and the next time her authority is looking for an expert they may just say, “No thanks.”

Now where was it Marion Davis works - must add it to the Dork list.

Wilt