Same in every authority. I don’t know how the DfE manage to get these daft figures every year for caseloads. They use averages from figures taken on one day of the year only. Including those who have just started so have a case load of 2 or who are just back from sickness and have a caseload of 3 and this brings the averages down making it look like everyone has 16 instead of 10 people with 30, 11 with 27, 7 with 8, 3 with 2 and so forth. The sickness is a nonsense as well. I don’t think caseloads have ever been lower on average than 24 in places I have worked and I know plenty of social workers with cases of 30 and some with more again.

Aggregation of this type is a misrepresentation of the real world creating distorted views of a profession that are inherently unhealthy.

I’ve held ‘caseloads’ way in excess of these aggregates while also employing others with ‘caseloads’ of 5-6.

The machine world assumption that one can measure the immeasurable fails everyone. As an advanced economy the provision of universal services is an expected competency.

How this expectation is met is though ideological. As yet there isn’t evidence of sufficient reflexivity in how the organisation of organisations will provide long-term benefits to society. That’s why LASSA was crafted in the terms it was.I have had the good fortune of meeting and working with the authors of this statute. All are long-ago retired if not dead. Is LASSA dead too. Discuss.

Sorting out the societal value of social work, perhaps as a means to mesoscopic evaluation methodology, in-between the micro-macro economic activity, in-between the agency v permanent staff or Council v RCCs is needed. Social Work occupies this third space and always has. The competency needed to initiate this conversation exceeds that which I have. I am suited to chaos. Knowing this is about our own adult developmental learning and not about changing the brand of Leadership and Management Training.

For CPD see the work of Otto Laske. Otto was a student of Theodore Adorno and Jurgen Habermas both of whom wrote extensively about the Authoritarian Personality as a response against Fascist thought. There are also countless Black and Asian perspectives that colleagues in IFSW can share.

Sorting out the legacy of a white middle class hegemonic influences is our collective responsibility. If we don’t, and we’ve been given plenty of time to do it, the mechanisms of market forces will inevitably to used.

Q: Do we Care? LASSA is dead. Long live LASSA. Discuss.

Facts!! the average case load is 16 or less ?!! Really …. ??

Where’s the money being spent?

What are the pre-election shifts in the narratives of social work, who’s voices are really being heard and is this in keeping with the Code of Ethics?

Cpd, eh!