The serious case review of Little Ted’s Nursery sets out important lessons for social care employers, regulators and the coalition government. Historically responses to such reviews resulted in the bolt on of tick box, bureaucratic systems acting as a barrier to holistic and risk based decision making. HR has a real contribution to make in developing streamlined systems that support an informed, consistent and risk based approach to workforce and risk management placing children and vulnerable adults at the heart of decisions.
The recruitment and selection practices at Little Ted’s nursery received significant criticism as there was no evidence of open job advertisements, job interviews or employment references. To possess predictive validity a recruitment and selection system needs to consist of a variety of checks and cross checks, none work in isolation. Much of this work is administrative and routine in nature but requires a close attention to detail with a management sign off prior to confirming the start date. All too often a failure to maintain these basic systems can undermine and contribute to the collapse of safeguarding systems.
Recruitment is an ongoing priority for social care employers as the initial results of Pivotal HR’s Social Care Workforce Survey (October 2010) report 81% of respondents still have job vacancies. This shortage of workers often result in a tension to fill posts rapidly and an over reliance on agency workers. This situation will only deteriorate as funding cuts place a downward pressure on pay for an already low paid sector and the proposed cap on migrant workers threatens to restrict a significant constituent of the social care workforce.
The absence of whistleblowing, supervision and appraisal policies contributed to a work culture at the nursery where staff felt unable to challenge or report Vanessa George’s increasingly inappropriate conduct. Communication and performance management systems foster a work culture where both individuals and teams have opportunities to voice concerns. Job competencies are a powerful tool in social care organisations for providing staff with a consistent set of positive and negative behaviours in what for some can be a subjective work environment.
The social care sector is undergoing significant change with a review of the Criminal Records Bureau and Vetting & Barring Scheme, a cap on employing migrant workers, halting of Care Quality Commission’s star rating system pending design of their new assessment approach all topped up with the Comprehensive Spending Review. With all this change will a holistic approach be adopted for the social care sector? At the moment the changes seem to be pulling in different directions with no overall direction, much of the change has the potential to be positive but needs a joined up approach to learn the lessons from Little Ted’s Nursery.
