Are computer systems failing vulnerable children?

Dec 22 2008 by Andrew Baldwin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Experts, including two from Huddersfield University, say poor information technology is playing a part in the failure of child protection and that software designed to help vulnerable youngsters could increase the risk for those it was designed to protect. ANDREW BALDWIN reports

COULD a computer system be partly to blame for cases like Baby P?

Social workers who should be spending time out in the community may be hampered by having to spend time on excessive form-filling, it is claimed.

A team of experts – including two academics from Huddersfield University – says poor IT is playing its part in the failure of child protection.

Researchers studied the Integrated Children’s System (ICS), a piece of software designed to help local authorities monitor vulnerable youngsters.

But the startling conclusion is that system could put the youngsters it was designed to protect at an increased risk.

Academics and charities in close contact with social workers claim the ICS system is generally unfit for the purpose of helping social workers protect children.

One complaint is that form-filling takes too much of social workers’ time, leaving them with less time for working directly with children and families.

The findings reveal there is a need to spend more and more time inputting data into overly complex assessment forms and a pressure to take short-cuts in order to meet inflexible deadlines.

Together with pressure to take short-cuts in order to meet those deadlines, the result creates conditions for errors to be made, it is claimed.

The researchers say: “While the circumstances of Baby P’s death are extreme and suggest errors of judgement, we are less surprised than many.”

Chris Hall, a reader at Huddersfield University, was part of the team which undertook a two-year study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and which involved five local authorities in England and Wales.

He was joined by academics from Nottingham, Lancaster and Cardiff universities and they were assisted by Dr Sue Peckover from the University of Huddersfield.

They say that the new computer software has been much lauded by Government and senior managers as a valuable and time-saving tool for social workers.

“This is at odds with what we have seen,” they add.

Professor David Wastell, from the University of Nottingham’s Business School, says: “ICS is a crude technological attempt to transform social work into a bureaucratic practice to be governed by formally defined procedures, involving sequences of tasks to be accomplished within

strict deadlines.

“As far as I can see, the development of ICS has been driven from the top down, by central government, with minimal design input from the social work profession, front-line practice in particular.

“The architects of ICS seem to have been convinced that it was the correct approach and pressed ahead regardless of warning signals from pilot trials.”

It’s an accusation denied by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, whose spokeswoman says: “A majority of local authorities have told us that they believe the Integrated Children’s System will be more efficient and effective than previous systems and enable better outcomes for children.

“It reflects what every social worker should already be doing. It does not ask practitioners to collect more information than they should already be doing.

“Proper recording is a fundamental necessity for good social work practice as well as a legal requirement. Social workers need to be able to analyse information in order to make informed judgements and share that information with other professionals so they can do the same.

“It is for directors of children’s services to ensure that the right balance is struck, that social workers are managed well and their time deployed in the best interests of children’s safety.”

The research team including Huddersfield University’s Chris Hall stands by its findings.

They say in a statement: “We have encountered not one social worker or team manager who is happy with ICS and all report vastly increased bureaucratic and administrative loads, lamenting that this takes them away from the ‘real work’ – and it does.”

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming has tabled a motion calling for an independent inquiry to address whether the ICS assists or hinders child protection.

The study will be published in the British Journal for Social Work early next year.