Some are having a very good war...

[Derek Hardballs]

Thought I'd bump this in the wake of the little toddler, Arthur. The title of the thread is something I have said many times in the last 18 months. I know social services, the police and just about everyone has suffered spending cuts but some just need a rocket up them. They need to remember that they still need to do the job they are paid for.
The police, apparently came and went. Social services, the same. This lad came into a situation that the authorities should have been aware of. The details are there for us all to see. The step mother is a walking disaster and has been so since a teenager (maybe before). She must have been flagged many times. Add to that the fact that the authorities  had been told by both sets of grandparents.
Covid is the new now.  People need to stop finding excuses to not do their jobs.

The govt need to find more money to pay social workers a proper salary for the work they are expected to do. Then their departments may just have enough staff to do the job properly and not run at 20% + vacancy rates which can be common in local authorities. They could also keep experienced workers longer and not rely so much on newly qualified social workers in their first job. If they earned just half of what some GP's earn I imagine it would be equivalent of a 20-40% wage increase. This would attract a more talented pool of workers. The service is under resourced, under paid and under trained coupled with a big rise in referrals of children since Covid.

I agree, but that is a separate issue. Many of those already in the jobs simply are not doing them. In this latest tragedy, social workers were informed more than once, the murderer was well known to them, the police didn't do anything. More than one agency let the lad down.

I'm with Tom on this. Customer service has never been a strong suit in Britain, especially in the public sector where all sorts of people believe they are doing you a favour rather than providing the service you're paying them for. Covid is the new cover-all reason/excuse for any sort of failing or short-fall in services. Even the critical services like healthcare and child protection have lapsed catastrophically - far beyond the point where under-funding or Covid restrictions can be held entirely responsible.

"We're doing the best we can for you" is the public sector mantra. In my (private sector) working life, I occasionally had to fire someone who was doing their best but it wasn't good enough. That's the real world.

I’ve had shocking customer service in the ‘real world’. I doubt any of them got fired for delivering shoddy services. Away from the anecdotal we have 3000 homes still without power ten days after a severe storm in the North East. Those customers of the private sector are being let down badly, I assume several heads will roll for this… I doubt it? Currently the local council seem to be the main source of help for those households which last time I looked was publicly ran.

There are good and bad people in both the public and private sector whether there was Covid or not these awful things happen every year, and I’m a little uncomfortable that an anti-lockdown agenda in schools seems to be pushed when it was individuals that failed the poor child. With regards to this schools did not close for the most vulnerable, again that wasn’t Covid measures it was a failure by individuals to do their job and the wicked evil parents.