Fighting Monsters

There is another reorganisation in progress at work. I’ve managed to put it to the back of my mind for as long as I’ve been concentrating on the ASW training but that doesn’t mean things have been standing still. I wonder if there is any theory of perpetual motion that relates to social services departments or to local government in general that means if nothing changes for about two years, the whole service explodes!

In my first ‘real’ social work job after I qualified, I worked in a large open plan office with lots of ‘more experienced’ (read : older ) social workers and social work assistants. This, of course, led to any number of tidbits of information being passed on to the new girl! I remember being told that there would always be a reorganisation either in place or in consultation or being reviewed. Always.

I laughed a little at the time. It seemed to be one of those truisms that is flung around about working in the public sector (as before qualifying I had worked exclusively in the voluntary sector) but it certainly has a ring of truth to it in retrospect. There does seem to be a continuous process of change and reorganisation. Sometimes it has an obvious purpose - for example, when there is a change in central policy that ordains it - but sometimes there just doesn’t.

Of course, standing still or resting on ones laurels can never be a good thing and a part of the process of social work is looking constantly for better practice and ways of working but the amount of reorganisations which seem to involve going back to how things were previously seem to be unnatural and mostly, one can’t help wondering if the amount of man (person?) hours that are devoted to reorganisations and consultations couldn’t be better spent.

The current process of consultation has been going on for over a year. We’ve had about three or four afternoon discussion sessions which involve everyone sitting around listening to the managers discuss what they think should happen and everyone else either nodding sleepily through the provided cake and biscuits or scowling with worry as they count, in their heads, the amount of work they could be doing if they weren’t in the meeting.

There would be more incentive to be actively involved if there wasn’t the overall impression that any decisions that needed to be made had already been made at the time that we meet.

Currently, the proposals involve shifting four local teams into two larger teams. While we have been assured that there will be no change in the number of workers or the professional mix. I think it’s pretty obvious that there will be one or two edgy managers around the place for the next few months..