Ranting Stan has a good post on the bizarre 'Baby P' report (short summary: social workers suck, so give them huge pay rises). Hey, it's not exactly the same as the Macpherson Report. Stan hits the nail on the head. It's not about who reports to who, or how many department heads there are, it's about a warped culture. It's bad enough that these people are obsessed with pandering to designated vict...

A task force set up to investigate the state of social work in Britain after the murder of Baby P under the very noses of social workers has come up with some wholly predictable and pointless recommendations. Basically, they suggest more pay and higher status for social workers. Yes, really. The reason Baby P wasn't helped, apparently, is that social workers - as well as, presumably, the poli...

Count yourself lucky dear. A heavily pregnant woman and her fiance have gone on the run after social workers threatened to take away their baby at birth. Kerry Robertson, 17, and Mark McDougall, 25, had been told that she was not bright enough to raise their child and that they would have to give him up. It’s not

THE SNP's flagship prison reforms came under attack last night from one of the party's main allies on the issue.

It is well acknowledged that our public services are overburdened with pointless and counter productive regulation, that there is too much wastage and bureaucracy which stops police officers, teachers and social workers getting on with the job, and front line staff are treated like teenagers who can’t be trusted. Much of the blame lies with

Labour's Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls' speech to the 2009 Labour Party Annual Conference: Conference, there are over 79,000 social workers in our country today. Doing a job which can be tough and sometimes dangerous - but which saves lives and makes a huge difference to thousands of families. And unlike teachers or nurses, fire fighters and police offic...

This is the full text of the speech to the Labour Party conference today by Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families: Conference, there are over 79,000 social workers in our country today. Doing a job which can be tough and sometimes dangerous but which saves lives and makes a huge difference to thousands of families. And unlike teachers or nurses, fire fighters and polic...

More motions.... The Conference called on all levels of Government (and particularly the Welsh Assembly Government) to revise the national strategy for Soial Services to reflect socialist principles. to negotiate a Wales-wide pay and conditions scale for Social Workers to include povision for sabaticals, recruitment and retainment bonuses for qualified staff in challenging fields. In addition, to ...

Social workers took a lot of flak after the Baby P case, but a government campaign to recruit more is hypocritical.

I've not written anything until now on the Total Political Blogging Awards, this is simply because if I honesty cared any less I would be arrested for political negligence, my blog would be taken from me by social workers and I would imprisoned following psychological assessment. Yet I post on this subject now as it's chance to explain why I blog and to also take pride in my edgy outsider status. ...