It is known that GSCC decisions have been described by the CST (Care Standards Tribunal) as draconian, as per an earlier article on Regulator Watch. Wilt has been undertaking some research over a few years and has had correspondence with the CST in the past, and His Honour Judge Pearl was very kind in sending Wilt a hard copy of the latest digest on its findings.

Many a Judge and lay members sitting at the CST have found the GSCC somewhat wanting either in terms of competence or process, probably about 50/50 on those accounts so far. Oh and the Employment tribunal aint that impressed with the GSCC either, they imposed a fine on the GSCC, if you recall, for unlawful prejudice.

Well, Wilt knows he is not on his own about his doubts about the GSCC – he associates with enough other people in the field of social care to know that they are held, in large part, in contempt – and that would be putting it lightly. To describe them as Dorks is mild.

Just take a look at comments of correspondents on the Community Care forum and you will gather they aint regarded very favourably. Well, it seems that rather than just simple grumbles and perhaps only those who have something to hide have a point to make – there is actually some research which actually does justify very real concerns about the GSCC, in particular their approach to providing registrants charged with misconduct a fair hearing.

This is very serious as the GSCC represent among all others the social care profession, sadly. They after all uphold the moral compass and moral base of the profession, albeit their morals are very much in question. Their competence has of course of late been drawn into further question since the enforced departure, on full pay, of its CEO. However, such doubts are not either recent, nor indeed are they so disparate to cause widespread disjointed concerns.

A regular correspondent on Regulator Watch is JusticeWillBeDone (or JWBD as I will call him/her).  JWBD recently highlighted some academic research by the British Journal of Social Work, using the following heading:

The Social Worker versus the General Social Care Council: An Analysis of Care Standards Tribunal Hearings and Decisions

This is an interesting article produced by the British Journal of Social Work which has researched the modus operandi of the GSCC. It states in the Abstract:

Using a critical content analysis, several themes are identified that give cause for concern about the workings of the GSCC, its Committees and the Care Standards Tribunal itself. It is noted that there is an inherent imbalance of power in the proceedings, which heavily favour the GSCC and are detrimental to the social worker’s chance of receiving a fair hearing. In addition, areas in which social workers’ ‘out of work’ lives have been considered to be within the remit of GSCC investigation and censure are highlighted. It is pointed out that a new morality of appropriate behaviour is being overseen by a government-appointed organization.

Albeit that is only an Abstract of the full research (we await the full document) it is nevertheless indicative of some major concerns about the GSCC and go to the heart of what Wilt and others have feared for some time – that the GSCC are not only incompetent but actually so driven and determined that they will gain that notch on the cosh whatever it takes. The GSCC, as Wilt views them, are self serving, lacking any moral compass within themselves and utterly divorced from any right to exist, let alone govern a honourable profession.

Wilt is grateful to JWBD for their contributions and in particular for highlighting this research.

As always, any contributor’s identity to Regulator Watch is confidential.

You can see the Abstract here:

http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/bcn136

Wilt ( I told you, beware the GSCC)

In a rather alarming report in the Telegraph today it is revealed that public bodies (not the police or your regular MI6) have in 123 local authorities made requests to access communications such as email traffic, details of phone calls made and websites visited – of members of the public. Scary! It is even more scary when one has some insight into who these individual officers are and the total disregard they have for the purpose of these powers – to prevent terror.

These powers should be removed with the exception of security services and the police, and then very strictly limited.

See the article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6001357/A-request-to-snoop-on-public-every-60-seconds.html

It would appear that quangoes are employing high flying celebs to front conferences and events, as revealed in the Times this Sunday. See article here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6788755.ece

Huge fees of £30,000 were paid to famous people and stars who not infrequently had no connection with the core concerns of the quango in question. It would be interesting if Ofsted, GSCC or some others related to the social care sector have done so, although the Learning and Skills Council feature significantly. Some hired public characters from the world of TV, radio and the arts have only ever fronted internal (as distinct from public) events/conferences. As the Times article points out – this is public money. It cannot be justified.

Wilt’s mind immediately gave thought to who could front a GSCC conference – perhaps Monty Python (the secret policeman’s ball) or the team of “I haven’t a clue” from radio 4, or even Mr Bean.

Gawd forbid. This is my tax £ going on utter self indulgence. What is wrong with these people?

Wilt (grrr)

Cordingly v Care Council for Wales
Date: 25-26 August 2009
Judge: Ian Robertson
Non–Legal Members: David Cook, Margaret Williams
Venue: Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, 2 Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1ET
Time: 10.30am

It seems some of those in the teaching profession also have a misunderstanding of claimimg expenses and using family members as assistants on, well a jolly good holiday at the public expense. Dork. See the article here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/8188049.stm

Presumably she will pay it all back? Mmmmmmm, we suspect not. What is wrong with these people?  Now the head teacher is retired – she will have to pay for her own holidays now, albeit that now will be at the public expense in my tax paying for her pension. Grrrrr.

Wilt is looking forward to expenses revelations from the GSCC and the likes. What might those details reveal?

Wilt

Guido I think is right, see article here:

http://order-order.com/2009/08/06/murdoch-bucks-the-market/

The desire for news will simply transfer elsewhere. Could be a new career for Wilt as Community Care will go to the wall – who the hell would pay for their content, let alone the magazine. It gets thinner by the week, unlike Wilt’s Blog which is getting fatter and more and more visitors.

Wilt

Later this month the GSCC are to hold a Conduct hearing at their London office concerning an Essex social worker. He is accused of various forms of misconduct, this time it seems not involving sex or robbing someone. And of course the GSCC will base it on the employers evidence i.e. not due to their own investigations. You can find the details of the case here:

http://www.gscc.org.uk/Conduct/Conduct_hearings/Upcoming_hearings/

Among the charges against the worker is:

“On 11 January 2005, and on various other unspecified days, you played sound effects of farmyard animals on your office computer which other staff found disruptive.”

And this is in 2005 – you would think that this indiscretion was perhaps now a lesson learned, and does it really need to be part of the misconduct? I suppose the people at the GSCC never circulate funny emails, play a joke on a colleague or generally act the fool for a laugh (as distinct from just being fools).

Mr and Mrs Wilt’s office have a Moo clock – you know like a cuckoo clock, but instead it has a cow that pops out on the hour and goes moooooooooooo! Wilt bought it as a office present some years ago (not on expenses).  Our clients love it. It, like the dog, helps to keep life in perspective.

Seriously, four years later do the GSCC want to profile that as misconduct? Well, obviously yes. It can only be designed to embarras the poor chap, silly dork he may have been. But it is rather dorkish to play on it. Dorks!

I can imagine now, that GSCC officer ‘drooling’ over the paperwork, spending months thinking, can I get the bastard on that one? He annoyed people, for Gawd sake. It was probably a distraction and yes if it were me I would have probably given him a few words of advice – discipline him? No, for Gawds sake!

OK, it is in the context of him accessing various non-related work websites over his work computer for several hours when he should have been working – you very naughty boy. It seems there is no suggestion they were sex sites. So, can we let this go please. Please, let him learn his lesson (assuming all allegations are true) and give the bloke a break. This is a purely internal matter, surely.

More serious is his failure to progress a permanence plan for children, and not make statutory visits. Yes, that is serious, and it is alleged he misled managers in stating he had. That is not good. Not good at all.

However if Wilt had a £ for every social worker who had a bad hair day and failed to meet all their targets, he would not be here and sailing on the Med in his luxury boat!

The thing is, the GSCC always go for the low hanging fruit, the line of least restance and an easy catch so that they can apply the Cosh.

This case will be interesting if the Registrant has a half good representative. But then of course the so called ‘independent committee’ needs to be overcome – about as independent as they are competent, and they aint got a good record so far.

Wilt

The news of the Youth Offending Team Manager, Christopher Hardman from West Yorkshire, being caught out abusing his trust with service users will not help the social care image. Clearly the man needed to be removed from the Register and that was easy as first he resigned from his job after the news broke (and his employer would have sacked him anyway) and second he did not attend the GSCC hearing to contest the case. He has gone to ground. Fortunately the likes of Hardman are few and far between.

The GSCC of course now put the details on the front on their website claiming the glory – well, actually they would have done very little (as usual) as the case was already well evidenced by the police and employer. One wonders if they will be so quick as to publish the next Care Standards Tribunal that blowes them out of the water. Mmmmmmm. Why change their usual MO on such matters.

Those keen to take on a tough job, the GSCC are looking for a public relations officer – Gawd help whoever gets appointed to that post.

There is another GSCC hearing ongoing as I write and another a little later this month, both in London. One involves a social care worker from Birmingham convicted of theft and fraud, who then failed to tell the GSCC. Oooooops. One can imagine the outcome of that one. Look out for the posting on the GSCC website front page, here: www.gscc.org.uk.

Oh, and the GSCC are still visiting the blog and yet they do not post. Obviously thet are not as busy as they claim to be. That makes 25 visits from London alone and various others from Rugby. That with the dozen (and growing) visits from the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, these quango people clearly do not have enough to do. Idle hands! Idle brains? Mmmmmm!

Wilt

Rumours are emerging that the SSSC have made, um, lets call it a cock up put down to human error.

PTRL doucuments relating to two social workers got mixed up and posted to the wrong worker i.e put one persons documents in an envelope addressed to the other. They each contain confidental (although anonymous) details of service users and others. Oooops!!

Now Wilt is less familiar with the SSSC and until I look a little more into their general performance I will not tar them with the same brush as the GSCC. If however it was a social worker who sent out confidental details to the wrong person, what might happen to them. I would suspect a conduct hearing cos the GSCC do like to add notches on the handle of their cosh. It makes them feel better! So what will happen to that SSSC officer, one wonders? Will they face discipline? Mmmmmm. We do know the GSCC have taken conduct action on poor record keeping on the part of some social workers already disciplined by their employer – why do they need to take further action? Notches, lots of them – that is the motive.

What would Wilt do? Well, it just goes to show that we are all human and can make mistakes. Proportionality is the key. Wilt would send the SSSC a letter stating that the error is logged, is concerned but hope that the SSSC would be equally be understanding and ask that all concerned learn from their mistakes. Oh, and that perhaps they will understand how sometimes pressure of work forces errors on occasions. Then he would hang on to that letter and produce it as evidence if he ever made a similar error and was faced with a conduct complaint!

Wilt

Quite what is news worthy in this article somewhat defeats Wilt. See article here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8180157.stm

In it the MP is reported:

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone, whose constituency includes Haringey in north London, said she was “deeply concerned” problems remained.

Um, OK! Is that news? Every reasomable thinking person remains concerned. Perhaps it is a slow news day.

However a more interesting article is the comments of a local authority Chief Executive Officer here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8078140.stm

This CEO was fairly blunt about Balls, that nice Minister. Some choice remarks, very unusual from a CEO, are:

Town hall official David Clark said the minister “does not have the solution because he is part of the problem”. AND:

In a stinging attack on Mr Balls, Mr Clark said social workers were human and would sometimes make mistakes when difficult judgements have to be made. AND

But, he said, those mistakes should be examined calmly “not in a howling debating chamber egged on by a tabloid feeding frenzy”. And:

“This preparedness to opine, wholly unencumbered by facts, shows politicians at their worst, and statements like “we must ensure that it never happens again” display politicians at their most stupid.”

Wilt likes this CEO

Now things must be bad or this is a suicide misson – CEO’s are the interface between elected members and the workforce. Presumably he is not in a Labour led Council cos otherwise old Balls or his friend the Prime Mentalist would have arranged for Mr Clark (CEO) to be decapitated. Mind you, it is a bit difficult to find a Labour led local authority these days. For a CEO to speak out, let alone criticise apolitical figure of such prominence ,and a Minister, is quite unique. It is not the done thing. Balls must have been ‘not amused.’

Mr Clark also commented:

“Pandering to certain sections of the media, politicians of varying political hues were happy to put the boot in to social workers at every level.”

Good on Mr Clark. A man after Wilt’s own heart. This time he put the boot in. Excellent

Wilt