News

Scotland’s new social work leader calls for radical rethink, focusing on those in most need

12 May 2010

“More of the same won’t do” is the key message from Michelle Miller, who has taken over as President of the Association of Directors of Social Work. In today’s (May 12) address to the annual conference of the association at Crieff, she called for ‘bold radical new ways of looking at things’, challenging traditional ways of providing services.

Michelle Miller outlined a bleak financial landscape where public funds can’t pay for everything. Against this background, she called for a debate, “not just about what we want, but about what we are prepared to pay for”.  This, she argued, involves questioning which services should be available irrespective of need or ability to pay. 

For example, looking at the commitment to ‘get it right for every child’, Michelle Miller questioned how realistic the ‘every’ is.  She argued that if we are to focus energy and resources on those vulnerable children and families in most need it, we will need to rethink some of the ‘universal’ provision that has been popular in recent years, but is “ultimately not affordable”.

Michelle Miller Said: “If you track the media and public opinion responses to the deaths of children at the hands of their carers, you could argue that a successful system is one where children don’t die in these awful circumstances.  But we know that the number of children who die like this is tiny.  And tragic though each one is, each one is swamped by all those other children living in very similar circumstances, who by accident of good fortune don’t die, and who therefore are overlooked, at least by the media and by public consciousness. “

She argues that these children live in abusive, hostile, emotionally barren environments but don’t make the headlines and may not trigger a ‘child protection’ response.  This is because of the thresholds that services have created around themselves to deal with demand that is not manageable.

With the approaching resource crisis in public services, Michelle Miller warns against battening down the hatches and “protecting what we have”. She points to examples of “bacon slicing public services” to keep them going in a form we are familiar with.  This, she argues, will not be enough with “too many gaps, higher and higher access thresholds for services, too many vulnerabilities and too many risks”.

She recognises that the alternatives are tough, requiring vision and risk taking. They involve “asking very difficult questions, the ones that have so far have only really been whispered...like can we afford free personal care for everyone irrespective of whether they need it, to be free?”

Michelle Miller argues that the workforce must engage with the debate and that those staff having day to day contact with people using services should contribute to how policies and services are developed. However, she also argues that this debate involves looking “beyond our borders” and “beyond what we know and are comfortable with”.

Michelle Miller said: “We are right to value what we do well and to be proud of that, but we need to be honest about the things we really don’t do very well.  We need to strike a balance between sustainability and innovation.  It is unrealistic to think that the public funding deficit can be halved, whilst at the same time protecting our two biggest spenders: education and health.  The inevitable impact of that on the rest of the sector, on social work and social care, on people, is unimaginable.  It is not traditional delivery mechanisms that we need to protect, but the services that people need.”

She argued that ADSW’s leadership role needed to shift from “rehearsing the reasons for not changing” to a collective drive “to get us to a new place”. 

ENDS
For more information, photographs or interviews contact: Lynne Veitch at Pagoda PR, 0131 556 0660, Lynne.veitch@pagodapr.com or Jane Devine at ADSW, on 07901 772233, email jane.devine@adsw.org.uk.

Notes to Editors
Michelle Miller
Vice President of ADSW
Chief Social Work Officer for City of Edinburgh Council

Michelle began her career in social work in 1979.  She has worked primarily in local authority social work services, first in England, moving to Scotland in 1985.  In 2002, Michelle took up the post of Depute Chief Inspector of Social Work with what was then the Social Work Services Inspectorate.  She joined the City of Edinburgh as the Council’s Chief Social Work Officer in March 2007.   Michelle was the convener of the Children and Families Standing Committee of the Association of Directors of Social Work until May 2009 when she took up the position of Vice President.  She is also an advisor to COSLA’s Education, Children and Young People Executive Group.