Our interview with Eileen Munro is part of a series of profiles of key figures who have shaped social work over the past five decades, to mark Community Care’s 50th anniversary.
One look at Professor Eileen Munro’s resume and it becomes clear that staying idle is not her strong suit.
A social worker who qualified in the 1970s and then became professor of social policy at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Munro’s research has informed the work of countless child protection services in the country and she is still actively involved in research today.
However, what she is best known for is her influential government-commissioned review of child protection in England in 2010-11.
The Munro review of child protection
In the final report of her review, Munro wrote that she wanted child protection to move from being “a system that has become over-bureaucratised and focused on compliance to one that values and develops professional expertise and is focused on the safety and welfare of children and young people”.
On one level, she has succeeded; several of her recommendations remain in place today.
Children whose referrals are accepted now receive a single assessment, rather than separate initial and core assessments, each with their own timeframes, as previously.
Working Together to Safeguard Children, whose 2010 version stretched to almost 400 pages, is now less than half that length with much less prescriptiveness from central government.
The same statutory guidance advises that local safeguarding partners consider the “principles of the systems methodology recommended by the Munro review” when commissioning local child safeguarding practice reviews. This involves moving from a blame culture to identifying the underlying issues shaping professional practice.
Ofsted inspections are unannounced, not scheduled. And there are chief social workers for children’s and adults’ services within the government and principal social workers for each service in every local authority.
The persistence of social work bureaucracy
Yet 10 years after Munro’s report, another government-commissioned report concluded that the “underlying problems” she identified remained, based on feedback from over 1,000 practitioners, academics, leaders and people with lived experience.
In the initial report from his Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, Josh MacAlister said that “high levels of bureaucracy remain and [social workers] do not have enough time and resources to help and build relationships with families”.
In a survey the following year, children’s social workers reported spending 59% of their working time doing case-related paperwork. In his final report, published in the same year, MacAlister described this as “a staggering misuse of the greatest asset the children’s social care system has – its social workers”.
And the causes that he identified – excessive national policy requirements, the time spent preparing for inspection, poor IT systems and risk averse decision making – were strikingly similar to those flagged up Munro.
The fear of change
Today Munro admits that the system she envisioned when drafting her recommendations has not come to pass – in significant part because her report coincided with the 2010 coalition government ushering in a series of public spending cuts.
But she suggests that she also underestimated at the time “how paralysing” steering away from compliance can be. It is difficult to take risks with the threat of an Ofsted review always around the corner.
“[Councils] have their eye on the child but also on the Department for Education (DfE) and Ofsted and the reality is, if you get a bad Ofsted judgment, the director is likely to get sacked,” Munro says.
“It matters to them, so that often ends up distorting priorities; although Ofsted has become better at looking at the quality of practice.”
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Following procedures can also protect practitioners in tragic scenarios. When the media storm inevitably begins, a set list of procedures can be proof that the social worker did everything they were supposed to.
“If you say good practice is about engaging well and making well-reasoned judgments, then, when something goes bad, others can say, ‘But the child died’. But the truth is you can’t predict the future entirely and you may be misled by parents.”
Josh McAlister’s care review
Care review lead Josh MacAlister
MacAlister’s 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care was the first review of children’s social care since Munro’s.
It has also led to the most significant reforms the sector has seen in years, through the DfE’s Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy, which is currently being implemented.
Yet, while being sympathetic to the process of conducting a review, Munro doesn’t sound hopeful about the outcome of MacAlister’s recommendations.
“Like me, he’s coming up with recommendations during a terrible economic time. All of the major public sector services have fallen under strain. I’ve never known it quite so bad,” says Munro.
Enhanced early prevention, but without funding
Photo: Vitalii Vodolazskyi/Adobe Stock
As well as their critiques of the level of bureaucracy in social work, the Munro and the MacAlister reviews also shared a belief in the value of early help in improving families’ lives.
In her report, Munro called for councils to be placed under a duty to deliver early intervention services, but this was rejected by the government.
Thirteen years later, under MacAlister’s recommendation, some local authorities are testing a new model, ‘family help’, designed to provide families with earlier support to stave off crises.
MacAlister’s recommendation was for family help to be backed by roughly £2bn over five years to help target half a million children needing extra support. Yet the government has so far allocated just under £40m to test the model in ten areas.
Though MacAlister’s figure was intended to support a national rollout, the DfE has made no such commitment as yet amid the uncertainty of an impending election.
“They said yes to [his recommendation] but not to funding [it], which seems to me the worst of all worlds,” says Munro.
“Trying to increase the amount of early help available as I wanted to would be brilliant – the number of people who could benefit from some early help is gigantic. But where’s the workforce going to come from?”
Improving working conditions for social workers
With no extra funding in sight, Munro says the only way forward is through local efforts to improve working conditions and address the high staff turnover rates in children’s services.
“Work conditions are where I would want to focus change at the moment. And that’s not about tinkering with structures, it is about [enabling] workers to have more time to reflect and do direct work.
“To me, that is the priority – creating conditions in which people want to stay in the job because […] we need experienced workers who can help newcomers to build strength.”
The lack of direct work in favour of paperwork is something she finds dangerous – particularly the idea that social workers don’t do enough visits “to feel confident in their judgment”.
“The danger is for themselves as much as for the child. [They] should be able to go home at night with an easy conscience.”
In a soon-to-be-released research project of hers, social workers in a local authority were given an iPad where they could work alongside a family during a visit to write their report or dictate it to an AI transcription app in their car on their way back to the office.
“You come back to the office and you have finished the report and involved [the family] much more. It saved [practitioners] time and helped them clear their brain of that family before they went to see someone else – which was something I remember finding as well back when we had dictaphones and secretaries to transcribe.”
‘My team was my main source of supervision’
Photo: fotogestoeber/Adobe Stock
But while improving the working culture of children’s social work may include choosing user-friendly software, it is also about strengthening teams, says Munro.
The Covid-generated culture of working from home is something Munro disagrees with – the team should be in the same room as often as possible, she says.
“My team was my main source of supervision and support. My supervisor was useful, but it’s the team that you went back to after a difficult interview and asked if you could chat with somebody about your process,” she says.
“[Colleagues] help each other’s reasoning, they help each other cope with the impact of the work. It’s much easier to hear from a colleague that you perhaps overlooked the second boy. You don’t get as defensive about it. They’re your friend.”
But any functioning team also relies on senior management, which, she says, is more detached from frontline social work than ever, making them perhaps less sympathetic to the realities of it.
“I now regret that I didn’t recommend that all directors spent half a day on duty every month or something like that,” she adds.
MacAlister made a similar recommendation – that all registered social workers, at whatever level, do 100 hours of direct practice each year – but this is not being taken forward.
Munro tells me that, in the early years of her career, a child remained with their social worker, even when that practitioner became a senior manager – “the continuity of care was so important, and we have lost that”.
“Once you’re away from the frontline, you forget quite how chaotic and messy the reality of it is. You get a much cleaner, more sanitised version of it. That’s dangerous.”
‘We should do more celebrating of social work’
Despite it all, her faith in the system is intact – lately there’s been “a growing number of outstanding authorities and a general trend of improvement”.
“There’s always that sense of, ‘I’ve seen this before’, but I do think the big trend is upward. Our understanding and knowledge are much better than when I began and some of the local authorities are outstanding – it’s an absolute delight to see the quality of the work they’re doing.”
In fact, there’s such focus on what goes wrong, that what is often forgotten is all the things that have gone exceptionally well.
As we round up our interview, Munro tells me of one council that holds serious success reviews to highlight excellent practice in cases.
“I wish we had a library of that. We should do more celebrating. Social workers are often modest and don’t want to say, ‘I did this’, but they should.”
Which influential figures in social work would you like to see Community Care profile?
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South Gloucestershire Council 
Wokingham Borough Council 
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Sadly, managerialism and bureaucracy reignsupreme in Social Work as managers look to protect their positions, salaries and bonuses
We are caring for two kin connected children aged 1 and 2. Social services dragging there heals as they treat it as free childcare while they mess about with paperwork. Been 9 weeks now. Application to court for regulation 24 not even in yet. Expected to look after 2 children on zero money. This loophole needs closing
When I was a social worker working with kin carers i would encourage families to contact the Family Rights Group http://www.frg.org. A source of independent advice and a check and balance for families at a difficult time. Hope this helps.
Nathan, I am sorry you feel that way, and that has been your experience, this is not acceptable and appalling. The Government and Management are to blame, not the Social Worker, who likely has a high caseload, and works in excess of 50 hours a week, more than he / she is paid to do. I use to work over 70 hours a week, was paid for 35, as an agency, I never got any paid holidays, but always worked through bank holidays (without any pay) like it was just another day at the office. I left after 25 odd years in the job , as I became physically sick and mentally exhausted from years of working excessive hours, for no pay, mainly no thanks, just to do the right thing by my families.
Sadly I agree with David. I have given up the profession as the bureaucracy, processes and audits took a priority over practice quality. Thinking outside the box and meeting individuals needs was admired in the early days but now it’s a box filling exercise. There is a top heavy down approach and experienced social workers are not valued or used to share there skills with other workers. Staff are made to feel that they are inadequate and there’s often a ‘no challenge’ culture. The processes meet OFSTED requirements rather than that of the children and the main aim is to get a GOOD.
It’s really refreshing to read that there is some support for teams being office based as far as possible because this isn’t something that I’m coming across generally. It’s only my experience but there has been huge emphasis on employers promoting hybrid working following the pandemic, and many more social workers also seeking this, but it worries me as it minimises the importance of relationships, reflective practice and peer supervision. In many ways, I worry that it’s contributing to an overly autonomous level of social work practice which risks being somewhat dangerous at times when the aforementioned are lacking.
Focusing on the wrong thing. Office based isn’t the issue and does not create an overly autonomous level of practice. Where I work we still practice face to face peer supervision. Visit are 100% face to face. Some meetings are held face to face where necessary and where technology such MST are used appropriately that’s also effective for being able to schedule more professional meetings or CiN, LAC, CP meetings etc, which mitigates logistics travelling around, whilst allowing more effective use of time.
Social work needs to be innovative with the current times, let’s not forget the pandemic also taught us how to be more flexible and innovative in our practice.
We need more appropriate systems and resources which allows for better engagement with our families and professional networks which we work.
It’s about looking at the economic status, access to resources and staffing levels which will allow for improved practices and positive safeguarding outcomes for all.
I’ve seen in the main hybrid working quite well. It’s about the balance between contact with colleagues and flexible working enabling people with children to be in the workforce – the experience of parenting/ caring is essential in the workforce- not for everyone but definitely needs to be in there. Changed my practice a lot.
Nothing has changed. In fact it’s getting worse.
I agree with the one and only response from David.
Far too many people involved, too many tiers of management.
Management have a total disconnect
They hide behind Their emails.
It’s not about keeping families together.anymore.
Straight to family court ,child in care,regardless
Now we have too many children in the care system
Agreed. Management have a total disconnect, shocking.
As a manager this is far off the mark. I am committed to my team and do not hide behind emails. I am sorry if this is your experience.
Are you fighting for lower caseloads and more social workers?
Totally agree. My comments are always deleted because I am a mother and we are not listened to .All I ever heard was I will ask my manager. Going straight to the manager she would just email and day speak to social worker. Hiding behind emails. Asking for help is impossible and if you don’t agree with management decision they don’t discuss just goes straight to p.l.o that you are not engaging. I think they feel its the quiet route and for the mother to so what management want. I didn’t ask for much help. I don’t think my ask was that big . However,asking for help was the worst thing k could have ever done because it led to being out on p.l.o
Social workers have too much power, they often do more harm than good sadly, and in my experience hide behind compliance offering families platitudes of regulations that act to protect themselves rather than doing the right thing. I have seen social workers collude with health creating early evidence bias on materially inaccurate data provided by health, evidence unchallenged and opening section 47 on false data, only to learn later they were lied to by health professionals. Rather than speaking out and referring to GMC, SWs swept it under the carpet and cancelled the s47 – this destroyed an entire family but their defence “we followed the rules”. Abuse of power by health professionals supported by SWs following the rules! SWs act in their own self interest to protect themselves first with families suffering the impact of collateral damage from mantras like safeguarding is everyone’s business. This is the danger of SWs having too much power and the pitfall of high status referrers being believed and failure to consider that doctors can act with malice when making referrals. The family were only believed because of covert recordings made, oh and review of the medical records which doctors withheld from SWs despite their requests, the mother had to provide the same!
Suffer the Little Children (1999) by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan looms large in my mind. Decades of systemic invalidation of abuse allegations in the Industrial Schools and Magdalena Laundaries only made it into the public consciousness through this book. The MacAlister Review signals a return of institutionally organised ‘Rag Nymph’ arrangements ~ it’s a truly scary picture.
recursivity is a requirement of reflective practice as is reflexivity ie how learning moves around and becomes embedded; here’s the rub and choke of it all ~ the architecture of the prevailing learning is derived literally ie the economics of actual delivery and also metaphorically from an archetype called ‘addiction’ ~ when children are killed (Toni Ann Byefield) or teenage care leavers found dead having been dumped on a skip (Johnny Bulmer), or brutally murdered ( The Mabgate Murder) there’s a sinister suffocation of the truth.
Social Work is being suffocated, no?
In total agreement with you Sarah.
In Eileen one can trust. Of this I was always sure. And, I hazard to guess she’s not done yet. Valourised services are crucial as long as valorisation is not confused with causualisation ~ maybe Prof Munroe will elaborate on this with a longitudinal research project?
Q: How will the MacAlister Review put the child back-in-to childhood and childhood back-in-to neighbourhood and as Zizek says “and so on”
Eileen remains the authority that Local Authorities trust the MacAlister Review isn’t trusted and rightly so ~ sure, there’s good stuff in it but it’s premised upon the falsehoods created by the, then, regional commissioning units which were a shameful sham.
Just saying is all….
hear, hear!!
Totally agree SW have too much power and are even able to influence the family courts, all this without taking each case on its merits,just quote party line statements so as not to rock the boat. My experience of the system is that it dosn’t listen, fails to safeguard children and totally destroys families. I have seen no change in 10 yrs, same missed opportunties from generation to the next.
The child protection process is based on professionals, assessments, on what often based on the anxiety of support workers, health professianls a many many others who feel sorry for children without fully understanding the reality of family life pr actually strengths of parents and extended family support that could be utilised. LA wount put in financial support, preferring to go down the legal route as opposed to supporting the wider family network. Once down the legal route. The actual needs of the children is lost in verbal gymnastics of the legal professionals, poor quality GAL, often influenced by solicitors, etc. The system will not change, until we move away from the court and rethink the whole CP system, looking to expand family strengths and support. Yes, there will always be inadequate parents who should not have child in there care. I remember Munroe and Lamming , alas, so little has changed over the past 30 years. SW still spending so much time filling in forms/ Assessments to meet the needs of the processes of LA and Court, etc
Reflective practice is, then, a myth, no? So what are SWE actually doing as the regulator except harvesting the Intel for reuuse and without any permission to do so.
And, largely because there’s no such thing as reflective-action (schon 89).
And, what system !
Systems don’t actually exist do they?
We do and as social workers and statutory advocates for those without a strong enough voice of their own ~ it’s 101 really.
It’s all about the ethic and the dereliction of our collective responsibility for such an ethic to exist simply because we collectively say so, right?
Keep it real. 💯
As a Child Protection Social Worker with over 26 years of front line local authority experience who is exiting the profession by choice due to the impossible and oppressive workloads and conditions, which make having just a basic life (let alone ”normal’) outside of the job impossible, I am leaving for the sake of my mental health, physical well-being, and sanity. However, I was appalled at the ‘Trial’ of where Practitioners and Families write reports together at the home visit, and then it is ‘dictated into a laptop, and it’s ‘Written’ (with the help of AI), by the time the Social Worker returns to the office. I wish the job was so simple, however common sense say’s a lot of families have a very different perspective and view than what Professional do of concerns and risk, which is why we always include their views in a report. Reports for Child Protection and Child in Need need to be written in a professional and factual way (including with dates of events), and need to be evidence based, and need to meet a standard, given they could potentially be used in court in any future proceedings. A report written ‘On the hoof’, and in such a simple way, would be quite dangerous, and leave the Social Worker wide open for criticism and potential allegations of misconduct. All of this has been tried and tested before – including the Parents and Adolescents being included writing CP Plans with their Social Worker, and it largely does not work. What Social Workers need is more Social Workers on the ground to do the job, lower caseloads, more managerial and admin support, and paid overtime – Yes – paid overtime. We are essentially emergency Workers who are expected to work all hours required to ensure a child’s safety, yet we don’t get any overtime, and no allowances for being ‘on call’ (i.e. being expected to go out at 16:50pm, following a call a child is at risk. This is why I am leaving the profession, until they can support me, I cannot support them.
There’s an unspoken truth that prevents anything from changing in the way one would hope: it’s an unlearned lesson from the building industry and financial sector.
Rather like the Ronseal advert (other products are available lol) it’s called POSIWID – (purpose of the system is what it does) – its the data analytics of care services as a whole and seen through management accountants with an eye on market entry.
The long run feedbacks date back to a meeting between SOLACE and Senior Procurement Managers on 18th May 2007.
Using the philosophical treatise known as ‘Sorge’ a Heideggerian concept, the data sets were examined and conclusions drawn. Make no mistakes this is seriously high end thinking supported by Principle Civil Servants who do actually know far more than they can tell.(Polyani).
That parallels could be made between the building and construction industry and the financial sector came as a surprise; the profilferation of agency workers and the financial services to support their existence were the growth sector.
Councils were positioned awkwardly the long-term costs of offering permanent jobs with no assurance from the then Government to meet costs beyond the life of a particular project beit Supporting People, Quality Protects or Valuing People to Tackling Drugs, were driven by a blind adherence to the then EC rules of competition and procurement ~ and ‘we’ rather egoically walked straight into a void of our own choosing ~ we created the conditions for a market to administratively speaking exist.
Spend was ‘out-of-control’ ie there was no overarching mechanism of governance. The demise of the Audit Commission heralded a sole reliance on personality based commissioning. (AO 2004)
Bullying was rife and in some instances encouraged ~ the territory damn tuff and mared by honouring those who dared while slaughtering any dissent ie Sharon Shoesmith to name but one (me another)
Brutality at it’s organised best. Tendering and Contracts were King.
That SWE are still required to satisfy the own regulatory masters and the ‘right touch’ advocates makes it systemic adding to the already insidious nature of a compounding societal invalidation faced by children who for not fault of their own must turn to and rely on the State for help.
State help that is systemically designed deliberately as avoidance architecture at it’s finest.
The purpose of the system is what it does, eh?
Thoughts…
Dear Maya
Too true. I have long held the view that if managers cannot care for and look after front-line staff how capable are they regarding caring for and looking after vulnerable children and adults? I have also chosen to leave front-line practice. The focus is on bureaucracy to protect the organisation as opposed to protecting and promoting the welfare of children and adults in need.
Managers have no respect for the 37 hour week and thereby the welfare of front line staff. Their interest is in maintaining budget cuts, the tight and unrealistic targets and timescales for completion of bureaucratic tasks for children. Ofsted inspections are a threat to their status, salaries, bonuses and future prospects
It’s a Friday afternoon. A Social Work Team Manager and a Service Manager suddenly appear with clipboards and pens in hand, asking beleaguered Social Workers if Looked After Children had Personal Education Plans recorded. How unsupportive can managers become, and this was in a Local Authority that was rated as outstanding but Ofsted. The naivety of the management beggars belief. No wonder I gave up
That’s what is expected of you David. If in 2024 managers are resorting to Tayloristic bollix speaks volumes about the repeated failure of the information management requirements as a whole ~ and it is the holism that is failing and not for the first time; probation colleagues and NAPO had something to say and said it with good effect.
govtechsolutions (and there are others) can only ever be as good as the architectural design used ~ it’s called Enterprise Architecture and the demands of social work quite simply defies any and all known attempts to specify let alone roll out properly.
BASW knew this in 2007 by a unanimous show of hands at the AGM.
The bureaucratic burden increases, data input errors multiply and false pictures of ‘need’ are created (known as ontic quales).
Social Work remains the profession, and has exemptions within the DPA, to seek and correct information held that is wrong or damaging to it’s recipients. And, not least because of the increased incident of wrongful data coding within primary care solely to meet with financial requirements, political whim, or prove market position to equity shareholders our ability to act is required more now than ever.
Incidentally, this is known as muda, muri, and mura in performance management speak and it pays-off to have
some knowledge of how this stuff is meant to work ~ knowing the difference between Kaizen and, say, having requisite variety and a viable systems model is actually a requirement of senior management, right?
The onus of which rests solely with senior and executive management and elected members accountable to public scrutiny committees ensuring that they actually know how the money is spent and does what it is meant to do; it doesn’t because they don’t ~ it’s a dereliction of responsibility ….
Enough said, eh!
*it’s genuinely sad to read and hear of people leaving the profession this way ~ it is though a long game of attrition geared towards the removal of State liabilities and without a stopping mechanism*
All this does (and it’s the doing-in-socialwork that’s the loci of attention) require that the axioms of the professional training and practice that draw from phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry are recast, say, in Deleuzian terms ~ which is a project dear to the heart of many practitioners world wide and most notably Maria Nichterlien, a child and adolescent therapist Melbourne, Australia. The work of the Buzz Project, Harrogate is similarly minded. I am minded towards the sociology of which, which too is sorely neglected. Just saying is all…
The same managers did did not go around with clipboards ticking as to whether or not Social Workers were adhering to their 37 hour working week and full lunch breaks. Says a great deal about the mindset of social work managers, eh,?
the 101 of management is to drive out fear not fuel it’s existence….(from Demings 14 pts of effective leadership and management btw The Deming Alliance are mighty powerful allies working throughout local government ~ ‘we’ are not alone as one thinks; asking for help is really hard, no?)
Something needs to change and fast. We cannot retain social workers. They are resigning in their ASYE or shortly after. It’s not OK that people feel pressured to work excess of 20 hours unpaid every week.
Wake up in the night panicked about work and that government or senior managers will throw them under a bus if something goes wrong.
It’s getting worse and I’m not sure how much longer we can keep out fingers in the dam without it bursting. Staff crying due to stress and pressure is not ok and we need to stop normalising that.
The issues are structural, cultural and personal ~ Neil Thompson became my go to read as his treatment of delivering anti-oppressive practice neatly matched the structure-conduct-performance model of competition (known as the Harvard School Model) throughout the noughties.
I have yet to meet a senior procurement professional and commercial sector thought leader who’d knowingly invite competitive rivalry into social services ~ there’s simply no evidence to say it works. Art Kleiner, CEO PwC alongside Gary Neilson and others conducted a study into the critical success factors of 870 organisations both public and private ~ the common factor was the a-void-dance of truth.
SW has friends in strange places ~ let them hear it’s voice it is afterall an international social work environment; the IFSW already know this ~ what say the IFSW?
You’re very right Claire
And, let’s not forget that during the cash and data rich days of the noughties the money simply fell out of the bottom ~ instead of repairing the holes left by 17years of Thatcherism buying new buckets was logistically and operationally much easier ~ the population health of most inner cities and large council outer estates flatlined and continues to do so and while the 3rd Sector thrived ~ facing up to this legacy is crucial if social work is to remain an integral aspect of social protection over the life course….
The polling has closed and an overwhelming majority see the vital role played by the commercial sector.
Here’s the rub: the contracting landscape is skewed and totally misrepresented; there has never existed ‘a freedom of contract’ and at a sectoral level.
If the MAcAlister Review (also known as the Cavendish Initial Public Offering) is to work then the fallacy of the State and public sector provision catering for the most complex has to end. Commercial provision is and always been a niche market and works well this way.
Lumping together the apples and oranges, as has happened right across all vulnerable population services, through I’ll thought out and ill-suited public procurement processes must end too.
The regulatory requirements, and especially on respect to information management obligations, will never been satisfied, properly.
When I last reviewed this activity across a sub-region both social workers and senior contract officers were beside, and at logger-heads, with themselves ~ children suffered needlessly, providers exploit risks and Councils are forced into a buyer beware defensiveness; not least because the commercial proprietary often included the appointment of an out-going children services manager; it’s called market rigging by any other name.
Troubled and troubling children can smell a rat a mile away ~ let’s show them some respect and decency and end the arrogance which fuels their invalidation as children and future adults.
Children know far more than they can ever tell. Our collective responsibility must first and foremost be to offering the chance towards a truly free development of their expressions and not the mere beancounting of numbers in and out of care.
Thoughts…