Information Management in Social Services

Andrew Kerslake, Nick Gould

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138326477
• eBook ISBN: 9780429831898
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1996, this volume explores the role of IT in the social services sector and provides solutions to problems of information flow and management, with contributors and researchers experienced in statistics, planning and policy for social services. Its publication marked a rite of passage for social services informatics. Articles contained in this volume confront the potentialities and risks of the internet technological frontier, bringing in areas including the voluntary sector, SSI inspections and how readers employed in social services can benefit from information technology.

1 Introduction

Dr Nick Gould

The publication of this volume marks a rite of passage for social services informatics — in the words of the World Health Organisation, 'the combination of technology and methodology which makes possible the computer-assisted collection, storage, processing, retrieval, distribution and management of information' (WHO, 1988, p.3). Some of us who were around twenty years ago during the formative years of Social Services Departments believed we had stoked up the white heat of the technological revolution when we started using carbon-copied, two-way memoranda. The intervening years have seen the emergence and recognition of information as a resource in its own right, with most departments possessing or moving towards an information strategy. Similarly, departments will invariably have made some investment in information technology, whether it be to automate administrative procedures, create electronic client information systems or develop computer-based decision-support systems. What has been experienced in the statutory social services has been paralleled elsewhere in the human services arena, be it the large voluntary organisations, the criminal justice system or the commercial care sector.

Whilst information technology is clearly only a sub-set of information management, IT's increased prominence in all our daily lives, what it can do, and not least its cost has made social welfare agencies increasingly question what information we collect and use. This in turn has begun to make many managers aware that information is the fuel that drives the organisation, and if it is that central, then we need to start managing how that fuel is stored, distributed and used, ie, information management.

This perceived emergence of information management in social services led, in 1994, to the decision by the University of Bath's Social Services Research and Development Unit (SSRADU) to host a national conference entitled 'Information Management in Social Services'. This was soon to be abbreviated in accordance with the orthodox linguistic culture of information technology to the acronym, IMISS. The hosting of such a conference by SSRADU seemed appropriate in the light of the Unit's established position as University-based researchers, consultants and software developers in relation to the personal social services. Once the concept of such a conference had been formulated, matters proceeded swiftly to invitations to a group of speakers who could be identified as recognised, key players in the advancement and implementation of information management within the British context. These were chosen by SSRADU as also representing a cross-section of the main stakeholder groups in the information management world: policy makers from central and local government, independent sector managers, senior social service managers, practitioners and the academic community.

IMISS duly took place over two days in March 1995 against the backdrop of the Georgian Assembly Rooms in Bath; the juxtaposition of late twentieth century technology against elegant eighteenth century architecture provided a perhaps unintended but powerful post-modem image. The papers given at the conference are included in this volume in a revised and edited form. They commence with Andrew Kerslake's overview of the recent history of information management in social services, and the role of information technology as it has evolved within that process. His analysis shows how some of the assumptions we may have about the rationality of IT implementation become confounded by the human and organisational dimensions of change. Nevertheless, he offers a conceptual framework to illuminate a better understanding of the development of information management. This theme is further elaborated in Chapter 3 by Terry Bamford, director of Housing and Social Services in Kensington and Chelsea. Using case material from his own experiences of management in that London borough, he argues that classical models of decision-making have to be revised to accommodate the inevitable intrusion of political and organisational pressures. This need not lead to despair that information cannot be brought closer to the decisionmaking process, but the identification of the right information, avoidance of information overload, and the appropriate presentation of information are vital.

Having set out in the initial chapters some of the broader parameters of information management, in Chapter 4 Jeremy Oppenheim confronts the potentialities and risks of the next technological frontier for social services, the Internet or Information Super Highway. Suddenly, social services organisations potentially have at their disposal the capacity to network rapidly and cheaply in order both to communicate and access remote information. How can this be of benefit to agencies in developing services and ideas nationally and internationally, and could it give users information and power? To elaborate the metaphor, where does the highway go, what vehicles will you meet, and is it worth travelling?

One of the potentialities of information management is to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of organisational activity. Henri Giller, in Chapter 5, cites the impact of monitoring and development within some areas of activity as instrumental in advancing policy and practice development. Despite the evidence for this, research and monitoring activity are still regarded as peripheral activities within many social services departments. Using examples from both children's and adults' services Giller examines the opportunities and constraints of monitoring and evaluation for effective management. The following chapter, by Matthew Dieppe, goes on from this to provide a case study examining in detail the impact upon a department of electing to audit the information systems in existence, and to identity the information requirements specifically to support community care. The outcome of such an information audit is considered, the time-scales for implementation of an information strategy, and the complexities of the context of change.

Of course, if information strategies at the local level are to be appropriate and effective, they have to be compatible with the national framework for information collection and able to support the information requirements of central government. Greg Phillpotts, chief statistician at the Department of Health with responsibility for the Department's Information Strategy for Personal Social Services, addressed the conference with a national perspective on information management. In Chapter 7 he explains the Department's approach to two main areas: it's policy on local authority information systems and it's requirements for monitoring information. In addition to this macro-analysis, the occasion of IMISS coincided with completion of the Social Services Inspectorate's first round of inspections of social services department information strategies and systems (with reference to community care). Linda Fean of the SSI, the lead inspector, in Chapter 8 presents the rationale for the inspections, an overview of the methodology, the main findings, and a discussion of the issues raised.

All this is to risk suggesting that the British social services are represented monolithically by government agencies. The voluntary sector has played a pre-eminent historical role in the evolution of services and continues to be a key provider and catalyst for practice and policy development. In Chapter 9 Ian Sparks, chief executive of The Children's Society, starkly addresses the question of whether a shared interest exists between the statutory and voluntary sector in information management. For example, financial donor databases may have a higher priority than client information databases. Furthermore, most voluntary organisations have a widely extended service base compared with the intensive focus of social services departments and so have a different approach to the definition of 'relevant' information. Sparks extends these considerations to the wider political and ethical questions of ownership and access to information.

Jean Jeffrey, apart from being Director of Social Services for Buckinghamshire County Council, is chairperson of the Association of Directors of Social Services Information Management Group which has a national role in strategic evaluation of information technology developments. Therefore, it seems appropriate that she should contribute the concluding chapter of this collection which reviews the key forces of change presently in social services, examines the benefits demanded from information technology for clients, practitioners and managers, and focuses on measures for organising successful information systems. The achievements and frustrations of social service organisations in meeting these expectations for information management and technology will undoubtedly be a principal element of the agenda for IMISS 2!

Reference

World Health Organisation (1988), Informatics and Telematics in Health: Present and Potential Uses, WHO: Geneva.

2 Information management: beyond information technology

Andrew Kerslake

Introduction

In most social services departments (SSDs) the deployment of information technology has centred on two main areas: a client database/index and word processing. The former can range from a system that embraces every aspect of social services activity to not much more than a card index, whilst word processing is normally limited to letter and report writing by administrative and secretarial staff. Social workers and managers tend not to use word processors.

This paper sets out three main arguments

• That SSDs have an information management problem;
• That information technology to date has failed to make an impact on that problem;
• That if information technology is to be valued, then radical changes in information management and the deployment of the appropriate technology are required.

As Challis comments:

The introduction of good information systems is not something at which SSDs have excelled. (Challis, 1990, p. 101)

For many that lack of excellence has been achieved by a history, over the last ten to fifteen years, of applying an inappropriate solution to an unnecessary problem

Figure 2.1 The historical legacy

Figure 2.1 above is interesting in that not only does it outline the problem/solution historical pattern to information technology (IT) implementation, but also matches much of what De Bono was writing about twenty years ago on lateral thinking (De Bono, 1974). As he would have analysed the situation, at each step the solution appears to be the correct answer to the problem, yet at the end a conclusion is reached which was not the intended outcome.

If we look at each of the issues on the left hand side of the diagram it is possible to analyse why some of the problems have occurred.

The historical legacy

Too much information

It does not require a lengthy journey into the history of SSDs to find a world of badly organised paper based files, a mountain of forms, unread memos, and frequently unused libraries filled with multiple copies of Department of Health guidance documents and at least half a dozen mint editions of the Seebohm report. Throughout all levels of the organisation staff talk of drowning in information; social workers and first line managers through collecting and storing the stuff whilst senior managers lie engorged on a pile of too much raw data and too little interpretation.

That SSDs collect and store too much information is almost self evident. For years information at all levels of the organisation has been collected on the principle that, 'it might come in useful one day'. This phenomenon is not just true of local government. SSRADU recently completed a piece of work analysing government guidance and regulations in child care (SSRADU, 1994) in an attempt to discover what information central government required SSDs to collect. This simple task produced a 200-plus page document (single spaced, A4) and even then did not include items stemming from either the Audit Commission or the citizens charter. Realistically fulfilling these requirements would be beyond even the best organised department.

For many authorities the solution to the information problem appeared to have arrived with the advent of information technology, rather than using the technology as a catalyst to reviewing the purposes of, and essentially the need for, such information. Consequently, the information debate tended to centre on 'what system at what cost?', rather than 'what information is required to fuel what decision making process?'.

Little or no knowledge of computers

It does seem concerning, given the costs of the technology decision, that more senior managers did not spend time acquainting themselves with what the limitations and benefits of information technology might be. Perhaps in those early days it never seemed so significant or that it would cost so much. Possibly fear of the unknown played a part in the rapid development of the post of the IT Officer, although who to appoint presented further difficulties. Although current IT staff are now somewhat different from their forebears, these initial appointments often gave the impression of falling into one of two caricatures:

The first, the enthusiastic amateur who was normally an ex-social worker. Somewhat disillusioned by having to meet clients as a requirement of their employment these individuals normally never looked back from their first failed attempt to assemble a Sinclair pocket calculator.

The second group are the programmers who went native. These people were often assigned from the central computing section after some minor misdemeanour, like inadvertently deleting all the poll tax records. The central computer manager would think that social services might be a relatively safe place from which they would never come back... and sure enough, they never did!

The overall point is that senior managers invariably appointed staff whose central interest was computers rather than the management of information. Meanwhile the lack of management experience of IT then led to unrealistic expectations of what systems might offer particularly based on the lack of an effective analyses of what information was required.

Wrong post, wrongly qualified, wrongly located

If it is accepted that quality information is the fuel to effective decision making, then having an information management strategy is clearly central to the management of any SSD, yet as Jean Jeffrey writes:

Forty per cent of those attending at the workshops said their departments IT strategy was not developed from an information strategy, (Jeffrey, 1993, p.26)

As stated above this absence of a strategy is not surprising given that departmental appointments were staff from a technical background. What was needed were staff at a senior level who could begin to unravel the information muddle and have enough power to introduce some means of information management.

These individual appointments also had a crucial effect on the overall direction of IT policy and procurement. Far from departments gaining a greater understanding of the technology, IT officers often gave the impression of using the new language of megabytes and WAN's as a means of mystification rather than explanation and as a consequence acquired greater power and control. This may have been the information revolution but in SSDs it was to include no element of democracy, - the message to the uninitiated was that computers were difficult to understand and use and required centralised highly controlled systems with their own technical and administrative cadre.

System does not meet needs

The consequences of the above history is still very apparent in many departments, that is large complex databases, expensiv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Information management: beyond information technology
• 3 Information driven decision making: fact or fantasy?
• 4 Internet: super highway
• 5 Monitoring for effective management in social services
• 6 Developing an information strategy and systems: reflections on a case study
• 7 A national perspective on information management
• 8 Information management; an SSI inspection
• 9 IT in the voluntary sector
• 10 Information management and technology; making sure you benefit from IT