What a load of utter nonsense!! After years
and years of creating a toxic and dysfunctional organisation, now faced with
insuperable challenges and a uniquely hostile financial climate, Birmingham
City Council seems to be considering the option of unloading the whole mess
which is their Children’s Department onto their employees, who may be asked to
take it on as an outsourced mutual trust.
Outsourcing a mess usually results in just one
thing: an outsourced mess. Birmingham should long ago have done the things that
would make their Children’s Department work well: such as stopping the blame
culture, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, supporting workers, creating a safe
working environment, allocating sufficient resources, creating conditions in
which people can learn and develop. They should have focused on children and young
people and their needs, not on elaborate and unintelligible reorganisations and
changing the signs on the doors of senior managers.
The “we-can’t-run-it-over-to-you” mentality
that is implicit in this latest development makes my blood boil. But if I
worked for Birmingham Children’s Services it would probably chill it ice cold. I
think Birmingham City Council should get its act together and take
responsibility for undoing the mess, before they consider divesting themselves
of what seems to be a poison chalice.
