National Care Service: Justice Social Work research

Executive summary

This report presents findings from qualitative research on Justice Social Work (JSW) services in Scotland. The research explored two inter-related issues: first, perceptions of the strengths, challenges and areas for improvement within JSW delivery at the moment, and second, views of the potential impacts of the National Care Service (NCS) on JSW. The research was conducted by Ipsos and commissioned by the Scottish Government as part of a programme of professional and public consultation prior to taking a decision on whether or not JSW should be included in the NCS. Fieldwork for the research pre-dated the publication, in July 2023, of the outcome of discussions between the Scottish Government and COSLA around the division of responsibility and accountability between local government and the NCS.^[1]

Methods

The research comprised:

• A literature review of national and international evidence relating to different approaches to delivering JSW, conducted by Professor Beth Weaver at Strathclyde University between December 2022 and March 2023. The literature review is published in full as a separate report.
• Qualitative engagement with JSW professionals and key stakeholders (including clients) across six case study local authorities (Argyll and Bute, Fife, Glasgow, Highland, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian). 141 participants took part in one-to-one, paired depth or group interviews between April and July 2023, including:
  • 102 professionals working directly in JSW (including senior managers, team leaders, social workers and paraprofessionals)
  • 19 professional partners from a wide range of other services, and
  • 20 JSW clients.

Interviews were summarised into a thematic matrix, allowing for systematic analysis of themes, patterns and differences.

Current strengths and challenges in JSW

Ethos and approach of JSW

JSW entails a dual remit, balancing “care and control” and straddling “justice” and “social work” services. Both aspects are seen as central to the professional identity and ethos of JSW and many JSW activities will combine elements of both care and control. At the same time, there was a perception that, in recent years, resourcing pressures have led to practitioners needing to prioritise regulation, risk management and governance over more rehabilitative and desistance-focused work.

Core JSW professional values include: a focus on relationships; a commitment to partnership working; and a trauma-informed and holistic approach. While these reflect core ‘social work’ values, the delivery of JSW as a specialism was also seen as a key strength.

JSW professionals had mixed opinions on the degree to which their professional partners understood JSW’s role and remit. However, wider professional partners interviewed for this research were positive about JSW’s problem-solving and “can do” approach. Clients also spoke positively about JSW’s non-judgemental, person-centred approach. At the same time, an awareness of JSW’s dual role could also create tensions for clients around how far they felt able to be completely open with their justice social worker.

JSW professionals did not feel the public generally understood their role and expressed concerns about media representations of JSW.

Funding and resources

Challenge around resources was a strong theme across interviews with JSW teams and their professional partners. Multiple factors were identified as contributing to resourcing issues, including:

• a perceived increase in expectations and demand on JSW and in the complexity of client needs over recent decades, reflecting both external factors (such as the cost of living crisis) and the changing policy and legislative context
• overall funding levels not being seen to have kept pace with this increased demand and expectation
• funding not always being provided on a sustainable basis
• challenges around staff recruitment, absence and retention
• availability of training to meet the needs of JSW, including the needs of teams in areas furthest from the central belt where training tends to be delivered
• suitability of physical resources, including offices with appropriate spaces for confidential conversations
• issues around external services’ resources, and
• area-specific issues, including challenges arising from the additional delivery costs associated with the geography of rural areas.

Partnership working

The nature and extent of partnership working was generally viewed as a strength of JSW by both JSW staff and their wider professional partners. JSW has a wide range of key local partners, including other branches of social work, wider justice services, other local authority services, the NHS, and a variety of third sector services. Inevitably, at local level some partnerships were viewed as easier or more effective than others and participants discussed a number of factors that either facilitated or hindered effective joint working, including:

• Co-location, which had the potential to substantially strengthen partnership working by helping staff develop working relationships, support knowledge and information sharing, and making it easier to link clients with services.
• Effective communication and information sharing was viewed as central to supporting risk management, but was felt to be hampered by a combination of ICT systems and restrictive policies and practices among some partners.
• Statutory frameworks such as MAPPA were felt to help ensure consistency in partnership working and decision making.
• Sufficient resources in terms of funding, time, staffing and access to services, not only for JSW, but also crucially for their partners, was key to effective partnership working (and insufficient resources were a significant barrier).
• Shared ethos or values between JSW and their professional partners was seen as helpful in facilitating joint working. However, JSW did not always feel that wider professional partners fully understood their role.

In terms of partnership working across local areas, opportunities to share best practice with colleagues from other parts of Scotland were valued by JSW staff and there was a desire to increase these opportunities, especially for those below senior management level.

Leadership and governance

Discussion of local leadership was somewhat limited. However, where it was discussed, JSW staff were – with some exceptions – generally positive. They particularly valued “active” heads of service, with a social work background who spoke up for JSW.

There were mixed views on the impacts of local CJPs on JSWs and a perception that understanding of roles and remits between JSW and CJPs could be improved.

There was no consensus on the impact of integration within HSCPs where JSW had been delegated. Positive impacts included: facilitating closer partnership working; shared learning; and promoting shared organisational values. More negative views included a perception that health “dominates” HSCPs, to the detriment of the voice and (particularly with respect to adult social work) professional autonomy of social work. There was also a perception that Adult social work had been subsumed within health, weakening links across social work.

There was a sense amongst professionals that JSW is “underrepresented” nationally and that the Scottish Government could provide more national leadership in terms of the direction of travel for the sector and challenging negative media portrayals of JSW. There was a belief that Community Justice Scotland had not fully realised its national leadership potential, though its role in promoting client voice in community justice was recognised and valued.

Delivering for clients

In addition to the overall strengths and challenges of delivering for clients mentioned above, local flexibility and innovation were seen as key strengths, although there were some examples where opportunities for innovation were felt to be limited.

Clients’ own views on what works from their perspective focused on: being treated with dignity and respect; having justice social workers who are approachable, communicative and honest; the range and quality of support JSW provide or facilitate; consistency (keeping the same social worker); and flexibility in terms of taking account of clients’ personal circumstances when arranging JSW commitments. On the other hand, where clients had experienced what they perceived to be less respectful treatment, multiple changes of justice social worker, or felt they had been treated inflexibly, particularly with regard to the timing of JSW commitments, they were more negative about JSW support.

In terms of consistency of JSW delivery, one view among professionals was that the delivery of core JSW services is fairly consistent, supported by a clear statutory framework, national policies and sharing of good practice. However, it was recognised that there are local differences in both approaches to delivery and access to wider services.

Differences in JSW delivery were not necessarily viewed by JSW professionals as always having negative impacts on client outcomes; rather, some differences could be viewed as simply different ways of achieving them. These differences were sometimes attributed to issues around resourcing, or to limitations to the perceived suitability of some national programmes and policies, particularly in rural contexts, both of which were seen as creating barriers to delivering for clients. Inconsistency in terms of access to wider services was also seen as problematic. Again, this was particularly, but not only, discussed in terms of rurality.

Where JSW had developed specialist services targeting specific groups (e.g. women or young people), these groups were generally seen by JSW professionals as well supported. Groups of JSW clients who were perceived to be less well served included: those with particularly complex or multiple needs, (older) people convicted of sexual offences, and clients in rural areas. However, again these perceived inequalities in access to support were viewed as, at least partly, a reflection of challenges accessing appropriate support from external partners rather than weaknesses in JSW delivery.

Suggestions for improvement

Participants interviewed for this research made many suggestions for improving the delivery of JSW within the current broad model.

Resourcing was core to many of these suggestions, including: increasing resources overall; providing resourcing on a more sustainable basis; linking funding to a review of actual staffing requirements and challenges; allowing more flexibility over how resources are spent; increasing administrative support and support staff; and improving office spaces and updating physical equipment. The wider context of services available to support JSW clients was also seen as crucial to effective delivery – improving access to mental health services, for example, would have a significant impact on outcomes for JSW clients.

Other suggestions focused on improving joint working with partners and across areas, including: considering scope for increasing co-location, integration and joint training; expanding opportunities for multi-agency forums and networks open to all levels of JSW staff; and increasing understanding of roles and responsibilities of CJPs and different partners within these. Enhancing national leadership was also felt to be important – including national action to improve public understanding and media representations of the role of JSW.

Clients interviewed for this research were keen to emphasise the positive aspects of JSW that they wanted to retain, particularly the respectful, non-judgemental support they received, and the range of issues their JSW teams helped them with. However, they also suggested a number of changes, including: allowing them to voluntarily extend the length of their support from JSW; reducing the number of assessments required before accessing JSW support; allowing greater flexibility around timings of JSW commitments in relation to clients’ other commitments; and greater communication between professionals, both within and outwith JSW.

Views on JSW and the NCS

Participants in this research expressed a desire for more detail on the NCS in general, and on the vision and plans for the potential inclusion of JSW specifically, raising many questions they felt had yet to be answered. Overall, participants identified more concerns than potential benefits in relation to the possible inclusion of JSW within the NCS, often reflecting their (negative) views of other ‘nationalising’ programmes – particularly Police Scotland, Health and Social Care integration, and the Probation Service in England. However, when pushed, three main positions on the inclusion of JSW in the NCS were apparent: that there was insufficient information to come to an informed view; that the negatives outweigh any potential benefits; or that, if other branches of social work are included within the NCS, then JSW should also be part of it in the interests of “keeping the profession together”.

Particular concerns centred around:

• A potential loss of social work values, identity and professional specialism in a service they expected would be dominated by Health. On the other hand, there was a perception that the focus on “care” might be beneficial in promoting recognition of the links between offending and underlying issues of health and trauma.
• Resourcing within the NCS, including the overall level of resourcing, whether JSW ring-fencing will be maintained, how resources will be allocated between areas, how services will be commissioned, and whether resources will be diverted from frontline services at a time when they are already stretched.
• The potential impacts of joining the NCS on joint working with partners outwith the new national service, including housing, the courts, the police, education, and employability services.

Participants recognised the potential for a national service to improve consistency but were sceptical about how likely this was without substantial additional resource. There was also a debate about whether a national service is the only or best route to achieving consistency and whether consistency of delivery should always be the goal.