‘Care Matters’ and the privatization of looked after children’s services in England and Wales: Developing a critique of independent ‘social work practices’

Abstract

The Children and Young Persons Act 2008 sets out parliamentary legislation that will allow local authorities in England and Wales to outsource their ‘corporate parenting’ function of social work services for children in public care to private or independent Social Work Practices (SWPs). The champions of private SWPs in the New Labour administration have found allies amongst the social work profession, including its professional body the British Association of Social Workers. This paper will briefly examine the case for SWPs and comment on the recent debate within social work. It is argued that, whilst these developments are consistent with current trends for the commodification and marketization of children’s services, opposition to and organized resistance towards SWPs should focus on the implications of the contracts for vulnerable children with complex needs. The commentary concludes by identifying some of the key issues that may be helpful for independent evaluation when the initial piloting phase reaches its conclusion in 2012.

Market Values and Youth Political Engagement in the UK: Towards an Agenda for Exploring the Psychological Impacts of Neo-Liberalism

“…In particular, universities have become sites whereby one enhances one's 'human capital' in order to increase one's competitiveness in the global, flexible, jobs market, most evident through the employability agenda ubiquitous across campus life now [70]. Marketisation has also reached into spheres relevant to young people in the form of social work and child protection [71,72].…”

Establishing Social Work Practices in England: The Early Evidence

“…However, these powers appear to have fallen into disuse (NSPCC, personal communication). The introduction of SWPs was depicted as an attempt to bring quasi-markets into welfare and was described by critics as the privatisation of children's welfare services and the commodification of children (Cardy, 2010;Garrett, 2008).…”

“…In this, he drew on the arguments of researchers such as Stein (2006) and Forrester et al (2009) who have emphasised the heterogeneity of children's experiences in the looked after system and who maintain that outcomes for looked after children reflect the needs that bring them into care. Second, Garrett claimed that SWPs were introduced without meaningful consultation of looked after children or their parents Other critics have suggested that SWPs will be required to meet the same bureaucratic demands as local authority children's services, particularly in relation to the much criticised electronic records system, the Integrated Children's System (Cardy, 2010).…”

“…Queries have also been raised as to whether practitioners have the business skills and knowledge to develop the necessary business plans to run an independent SWP and whether sufficient thought has been given to calculating both costs and risks (Cardy, 2010). The professional press has been more even-handed in its coverage, reporting both the achievements of SWPs and articulating resistance (Brody, 2010;Lombard, 2010;Mahadevan, 2010).…”

The marketisation and privatisation of children’s social work and child protection

“…Over the past 8 years children's social work services have been increasingly opened up to the market place This was seen at the time as a start of positioning for privatisation statutory social work services for children (Garrett, 2008;Cardy, 2010), and it has been commented that:…”