Former worker speaks about Birmingham social services department
“Once someone had been in touch we had to do an initial contact assessment in two days, which was not usually a problem. But following it up certainly was because of the lack of staff so people could go a phenomenal amount of time before they were contacted by a social worker, six months at least.
“Many people just fell off our lists but when we did come to check-up on people I dreaded it because we often found they had died in the interim. It was awful phoning up loved ones and widows and finding out they were dead.
“It got to the stage when people phoned up that I’d tell then I’d let my manager know, but I knew that nothing would happen for them.”
But the former social worker warned the problems at Birmingham City Council were nationwide and social workers across Britain were being pushed to the limit.
“It was far too easy for people to slip through the cracks and it happened time after time but there was nothing we could do about it,” she said. “For each individual we dealt with we were supposed to have everything in place after 28 days.
“At which point we would conduct a review of their case, and if they were happy at that point, you could close that case in terms of your workload and other professionals would take it over, such as a psychologist for example.
“But the problem was this system was so inefficient that it ended up nobody knew who was dealing with what and cases would bounce back to you which you thought you had finished with months ago. We were in a situation where people did not know who was dealing with what and I have had cases just sitting in baskets which never got closed.
“We just didn’t get the support we needed from our managers, who just weren’t interested in the day to day problems of our cases and were only interested in their targets and the constant politics which I found baffling
“For example it cost us a £100 per day to keep a patient in hospital, but instead of getting them out as soon as possible and drawing up a care package for them the policy was to keep them in there as long as possible, because it was cheaper, which I didn’t really understand to be honest.”
“Cases like Khyra Ishaq and Baby P just don’t surprise me, even though I know they are shocking, because I can see how they can happen.
She added: “There is a new TV advertising campaign on at the moment looking for social workers. One of them makes out like we have the time to play pool with at-risk children, and find out there problems, but I have to laugh because it is just nonsense.
“Firstly that is what youth workers do, but secondly social workers would never have the time to play pool with anyone.”
