Gould, N. & Moultrie, K. (eds.) (1997) Effective Policy, Planning and Implementation, Ashgate, Aldershot, x + 103pp., £32.50 hbk. Rob Sykes is senior lecturer in social policy in the School of Health and Community Studies, Sheffield Hallam University. He is on the British Social Policy Association executive and on the SocInfo advisory group. He has a professional and personal interest in the development and use of IT and other new learning technologies. Contact him
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Effective Policy, Planning and ImplementationReviewed by Rob Sykes This slim volume comprises an introduction and eight substantive chapters which are based upon conference presentations selected from the second Information Management in the Social Services conference held in November 1996 under the auspices of the Social Science Research and Development Unit at the University of Bath. The overall theme of the conference and the book is the quality of information available to social service organisations, rather than a concern with information management tools themselves. A first, and lasting, impression gained on reading this book is that its contents are very obviously based upon conference presentations, some even retaining their presentation format. Furthermore, the style of delivery and mode of discussion of most chapters is also very clearly oriented to conference discussion. All of the chapters, bar one (by Steyaert), are essentially descriptive of either a particular information management system, projects to evaluate such systems, sources of information, and so on. It is true that most of the chapters also introduce some sort of evaluation of the system or procedures etc. described, and some (those by Tutt, Colombi, Steyaert, and Gould and Wright) engage in a more analytical treatment of their subject matter. Nevertheless, most of the material in this book is more descriptive than analytical. Turning to a more detailed review of a selection of the chapters, the first three chapters, by Tutt, Colombi and Steyaert, focus on the lessons to be learnt from the experience of using information systems to cope with specific organisational needs. Tutt's chapter entitled 'Why have social services failed to capitalise on monitoring and evaluation systems?' describes two systems designed to monitor the effectiveness of a) local youth justice systems and b) child care services more generally. Though the first of these systems was generally agreed to have succeeded and gained acceptance by practitioners and mangers, the second did not. As an indication of this failure, Tutt points out that it is still possible, ten years after the launch of a child care monitoring system in 1986, to enter certain social services departments and to receive 'a baffled response from staff' when asked questions such as: 'How many children are "looked after" by the authority', or 'How many children "looked after" return home, or move into independent living supported by the authority'. The problem, he argues, is that, unlike youth justice, there is no clear consensus about what the objectives of the child care system are. Where monitoring of child care system has occurred it has focused upon with process monitoring, 'counting heads and beds', rather than upon performance monitoring of agreed targets and objectives. The key issues for social services managers and practitioners which Tutt derives from his two case studies are threefold:
i) to devise an IT strategy which has utility for the practitioners which
gives them regular feedback on their budget and levels of activity; Colombi's chapter on probation service client information systems starts innocuously enough by describing NIPSISS , the National Probation Service Information Systems Strategy, and CRAMS, the Case Records Administration and Management System a central computerised plank of NIPSISS. It is when he turns to an assessment of NIPSISS and CRAMS that the tone changes. Colombi asks three questions: 'Is the infrastructure and the CRAMS software appropriate to the task?', 'How well is the project managed?', and 'Is the service and the taxpayer getting value for money?'. The criticisms are trenchant and sustained, but suffice it here to say that Colombi's answers to these questions appear to be 'No!', 'Badly!', and 'No!'. Steyaert's chapter is, at least for this reviewer, the most reflective and thought provoking. Steyaert sets his discussion of client information systems both in an international context, and in the context of an argument that the perceived problems of such systems may be viewed as having a number of interconnected layers. He begins from the negative attitudes and opinions of both practitioners and policy makers to computerised client information systems and suggests that closer examination of such objections and complaints reveals that several layers of issues can be distinguished. He calls these the methodological, the functional, the policy and the professional layers. It is not possible to do justice to Steyaert's argument in a brief review, but the essential point is that for each layer he carefully unpacks and evaluates the objections raised at different layers, and persistently argues for the importance, indeed the vital character of client information systems. Steyaert then links this research-based discussion (undertaken in Flanders, the Netherlands and Israel) with a consideration of the UK Looking After Children initiative and finds, amongst other features, that client information systems in the UK are generally more structured and automated than in mainland Europe. He also suggests, however, that the gathering of data in the UK does not always mean that it then used in the most effective way or that it improves the quality of service provision. His pointed and telling conclusion is that if we cannot identify the positive contributions information management can have upon service outcomes then concern with information management is a waste of intellectual energy. Using the Rikki Neave case(1) as an example, Steyaert asks whether better information management may have helped the local social work practitioners to overcome what he calls 'Type 1' and Type 2' errors. A type one error means that an hypothesis (in this case that a child is in danger and therefore should be removed from its family) is rejected even though it proves to be true. A type two error would be when an hypothesis is accepted even though it is false (for example that the child is removed from its parents even though it is not, in fact, in danger). As Steyaert points out, it has been shown that social workers and other social service practitioners prefer to accept a higher degree of type two errors rather than risk their own reputation by making type one errors. Yet could proper information management have had an influence on cases like that of Ricky Neave and upon the Type1/Type 2 dilemma? He suggests it might in that good information management systems provide structured information which can be shared by different personnel involved in such cases, provide a framework for monitoring cases and for further action, and provide social workers and others with detailed facts to support their case for proper resources to carry out their tasks. In summary, this book is, for the most part, a collection of interesting and informative pieces which various workers in the social services who are interested in improving the quality of information management to support their activities would find of some use. However, the rather limited length and depth of discussion in some of the chapters, coupled with the overall length of the book and its high price (there is no softback version) will certainly not encourage many 'rank-and-file' social service practitioners to buy it. One wonders, indeed, why the core chapters of this book, could not have been put together in a cheaper and therefore more accessible format. The message of this book overall is that the quality of information and its management in the social services is in need of considerable rethinking and improvement. If this is so, then surely the message needs to be heard and understood by as wide an audience as possible? (1) Rikki Neave was a six year old boy found murdered after a life full of physical and mental cruelty. His mother was found not guilty of his murder but imprisoned for cruelty to her son. His case had been known to the local social services department since 1991, and its apparent failure to prevent the child's continuing abuse and eventual murder was the subject of both media and official investigation. |
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The journal has now ceased publication (2003) |