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introduction
The 21st Century Social Work Review was commissioned at a time of great uncertainty about the future direction of social work services, illustrated by a lack of clarity and confidence amidst rising public expectations and growing complexity of need, punctuated by a series of critical reports following tragic incidents. The review has given a much clearer understanding of the context in which social work finds itself in the early 21st century and how to make better use of the significant resources that society invests in social work.
Changing Lives has told us very clearly that "more of the same won't work", that our current approach to the delivery of social work services in Scotland is unsustainable. Despite the undoubtedly excellent work and commitment of local authorities and many people across the country, it is obvious from the review group's report and the wide range of evidence that underpins it that we are not consistently doing the right things well. As a result:
- we are not making the most effective use of our skilled social workers;
- we have a social work profession lacking confidence in itself, with uncertainty about its role and a lack of sufficient attention to development over many years;
- high profile service failures have led to tragedy and consequently driven services to a more risk averse culture than that needed;
- services have become over managed, yet under led, limiting and constraining the practice and autonomy of social workers at the front line and acting as a barrier to people receiving the type of help and support that they need, when they need it;
- there is not sufficient focus on achieving clear outcomes for people, with the result that too much effort is placed on processes and not enough on securing outcomes; and
- there is insufficient clarity about priorities and under-developed performance improvement systems.
Addressing these challenges will not be easy. Social work services need to transform themselves through a major programme of cultural change and service re-design. It will require the active commitment of all with an interest in social work services and strong, enabling leadership both nationally and locally. This response sets out the foundations of that change programme. It does not attempt to give a point by point analysis of the recommendations set out in Changing Lives. Instead it sets out our long-term aspirations for services and outlines the six main pillars of our proposed change programme.
We propose to spend the next few months in further dialogue with local authorities and other key stakeholders considering the detail of the review's recommendations and how they may be taken forward, before publishing a full implementation plan later in the year.
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