A newly qualified social worker is quoted in the Guardian as
saying: “… it often seems that the help I can offer is too constrained by risk
management and bureaucracy and that rather than actually help people, I spend
most of my time filling in forms.”
That must be one of the saddest quotes of the year. And personally I can’t think of anybody who would agree that filling in forms is
better than helping people. So why is that being allowed to happen?
Rather than just shrugging, as if this sort of thing is
inevitable, policy makers, practitioners, managers and academics should be
busily addressing the issue. What can be done to ensure that we are not
strangled by paperwork? How can we comply with regulations without destroying services?
How can we ensure that the needs of all children in distress are adequately
met? How can we give our staff the time and space to care and help?
I might not agree with everything Michael Hammer wrote – in
fact I disagree with quite a lot of it – but I can heartily recommend applying
his famous injunction to the mounds of paperwork – “Don’t Automate, Obliterate”.
(https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate-obliterate/ar/1)
I would suggest that every children’s services department in
England, and the equivalent organisations elsewhere, invest in large wheelie
bins into which are thrown every form that cannot be strictly justified and
every form that is too complex and every form that takes too long to complete and every form that people hate.
And I suggest that managers are charged to take these wheelie bins away and examine
their contents and come-up with alternative ways of discharging whatever
bizarre and unwelcome bureaucratic imperatives resulted in the creation of all
this unproductive paperwork in the first place.
