Computer system for social workers condemned by academics

A computer system set up to help social workers protect children has been condemned by academics.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham studied the Integrated Children's System (ICS), a piece of software designed to help local authorities monitor vulnerable children.

But the system, academics said, could put the youngsters it was designed to protect at an increased risk.

The university said the ICS was set up to standardise the procedures followed by social workers, but relied on complex assessment forms and workers inputting large amounts of data.

A statement from the university said it had the "potential to undermine good social work practice".

It added: "The need to spend more and more time inputting data into overly complex assessment forms and the pressure to take short-cuts in order to meet inflexible deadlines, create what the researchers call 'latent conditions for error'.

"The study claims that changes brought in by the Laming Report in 2003 - following the death of Victoria Climbie - together with on-going resource constraints have served to further burden front-line workers already under heavy pressure in busy offices.

"Latent conditions for error, the researchers say, may have limited adverse influence where staffing levels were good.

"However, in situations of high referral rates, inexperienced staff, turnover or sickness, they will become increasingly dangerous."

The two-year study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and involved five local authorities in England and Wales.
Researchers from Lancaster University, Cardiff University and the University of Huddersfield also took part in the study.

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

Professor David Wastell, from the University of Nottingham's Business School, said: "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."

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokeswoman said: "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 judgments 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."