In an anonymous letter sent to the JEP, an unnamed social worker has alleged not only a myriad of failings in Jersey's Children's Services, but that an institutional culture of fear has prevented the true level of failure being exposed. Calling Children's Services "a scam, a cover-up and wickedness", the letter alleges that "evil is happening to the social services" and that "people are only thinking of themselves. There is no comradeship and no one is looking after your back. The staff have signed the official secret act and they would be dismissed if they blew the trumpet".
The points the letter makes should come as no surprise at all to anyone who has ever worked in Jersey's social services. It identifies three main big issues - major staff shortages, the abundance of temporary workers, and useless managers more concerned with covering their own backs than looking out for vulnerable kids. This first problem is well-known - the States have acknowledged in the past that we've got serious shortages of trained social workers, but insisted there's no quick fix. Instead, they've tried to apply a sticking plaster in the form of temporary workers, AKA "temps", paid as much as £1.5K a week to come and plug gaps in Health and Social Services (HSS). These temporary workers aren't stupid - obviously, when they're on a grand and a half a week, they've got no reason to apply for a permanent job in a health and social care system where even the highest-paid workers are making far less. This means that while the taxpayer is basically left out to dry, these temps take a nice cushy job in HSS over the winter, then scurry back to merry old England once the sun comes out. Since they've usually got no meaningful link to the island, they're also quite happy to up sticks and go home should there be any risk of them being held accountable for anything - or, in the whistleblower's words, "when the shit hits the fan they will be on the next flight home with no responsibility or repercussions blamed on them". Managers are another thing altogether - the whistleblower alleges that managers, caught up with internal feuding and jostling for power, have an attitude that boils down to "we must not rock the boat, just keep lying" (in the letter's words). Most concerning of all is the letter's allegation that "the powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services" - is this 2018, post-Independent Care Inquiry, or the bad old days of the 1980s? Or did anything ever actually change?
Frankly, it's amazing that this comes as a shock to anyone. As the Independent Care Inquiry (ICI) found, Children's Services in Jersey have been a disaster zone run by a mixture of incompetent fools and malicious perverts for decades. Reports since then have hardly been more charitable - a review conducted early this year by the Children's Commissioner Deborah McMillan and (cue vomit) SOJ Chief Executive Charlie Parker found that, unsurprisingly, change was proceeding at a snail's pace, temporary workers were causing confusion and despair in vulnerable children (some kids were changing between five or six different social workers in the space of 12 months), and not enough permanent social workers were being attracted to live in the island. A preliminary Ofsted report published a few weeks back found, er, the exact same problems. Everything we've seen since the ICI was published seems to make the same conclusion - there hasn't been a serious change, vulnerable kids are still being failed, and our children's services are still a trainwreck. The States' response to the allegations was the same spiel we always get - "we recognise there are serious failings and that we need to make swift improvements".
The deep state in Jersey has been resisting serious reform of Children's Services for years, and it's time the States stopped beating around the bush. The pace of change has been cripplingly slow, the department's staff are still sworn to an oath of omertà and vulnerable kids are still being seriously failed, and will continue to be until HSS and the States as a whole get their act together.
"The powers that be have such a grip on Children's Services".
Chilling.
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