4,228 entries for Historical Context

On 23rd October 1974, Mr O Maitiú wrote to Mr Hensey in the Department of Health informing him that the Department of Education was studying the question of the financing of the residential homes and that discussions had taken place with the Association of Workers in Child Care in relation to recommendation 11 of the Kennedy Report. In his letter he stated that ‘because an increasing proportion of the children in the homes are the responsibility of the health authorities and particularly in view of the recent Government decision on the role of the Minister for Health in regard to child care, we think we should not go further with the matter at this stage until we have consulted with your Department’. Ó Maitiú enclosed a detailed memorandum on the issue which reflected the Department’s thinking at that time. The memo highlighted that: One of the points basic to the Kennedy Report recommendations was that children should be placed in, and retained in, residential care only when there was no suitable alternative. In this context, it was felt that a system of financing homes by capitation grant could encourage homes to try to retain children who should suitably be returned home or placed elsewhere under supervision.

In addition: A further recommendation in the Kennedy Report in relation to the need to provide separately for works of a capital nature has been accepted and in the provision since 1971/72 of a capital sub-head for new buildings and since 1973/74 of a sub-head for grants towards the modernisation and adaptation of existing buildings (sub-heads E & H in Vote 32).

In relation to the system of capitation funding, the memo highlighted: The capitation grant for children committed through the courts is paid in approximately equal shares by the Department of Education and the Co. Council or Co. Borough (except for children over 17 years of age, where the entire grant is paid by the Department). In recent years, to avoid the stigma of committal proceedings, the tendency has been to have the child referred to the home wherever possible by the Health Authority, under the provisions of section 55 of the Health Act, 1953. Health Authorities pay a capitation grant for the children for whom they are responsible equal to the total of the State grant plus local authority grant in the case of committed children. Voluntary cases are paid by their parents or relatives – the amounts contributed are usually nominal.

He highlighted that not only was the Department concerned with the method of payment, but that the homes themselves were unhappy with the system of financing as: the money comes from so many sources and there is often delay in payment. From the administrative point of view the system is anomalous, wasteful and archaic. As the Government has decided that health charges will be transferred from the local rates to the central exchequer, the Health Authority grants will in future be borne directly by the Department of Health, whereas the grants for committed children will continue to be borne jointly by the Department of Education and the Co./Co. Borough Councils. There is much to be said for making all the grants a charge on central funds: this would involve releasing the councils from the obligations laid upon them by the Children Acts.

The Department was also under pressure to deal with the financing of the homes. This pressure has come from two related sources. Firstly, it was also a major recommendation of the Kennedy Report that large institutional buildings should be sub-divided into small self-contained units or, where new buildings were needed, these should be in the form of small group homes. This recommendation was accepted by the Department and funds for the conversion of old buildings and the erection of new ones have been made available by the Department of Finance since 1971. It was in fact already being implemented independently, so far as their sources would allow, by some of the homes. The effect of a move to small groups is, obviously, some sacrifice of the more economical functioning of the larger institutional structures, particularly as concerns staff numbers. The second source of pressure on the Department has been the decline in the number of religious available to staff the homes and the consequent employment by the conductors of lay people as staff in much greater numbers than before. Such lay people are not prepared to work for the salary rates which the capitation grant permits the conductors to offer them, nor are they prepared to enter a type of employment where salary rates and other conditions are not agreed on a general basis.

What made the situation particularly problematic was that: The present rates of grant are not based on any rationally worked-out norms...grant increases since 1969 have aimed solely at maintaining the position attained at that time when the grant was somewhat arbitrarily doubled in face of growing public awareness of its hopeless inadequacy. The grant in most cases appears more than adequate to cover the cost of maintaining the children, but it is not adequate to cover as well the salaries of care staff and wages of domestic staff. Some homes show a small surplus on the year’s working, but closer examination reveals that they have allowed no salaries (or only notional salaries) for religious staff engaged in full-time care work. On the other hand homes employing a majority of lay staff show heavy deficits, especially where male staff have to be employed to care for senior boys in homes conducted by nuns.

As a consequence, he argued: there would be a great deal of difficulty, from an administrative point of view in converting entirely to a budget system, as recommended by the Kennedy Report. The information to hand suggests that it would be largely a futile exercise to have homes present estimates of expenditure in the absence of parameters which could be applied to the items in such expenditures. In these circumstances, the Department believes that there is no alternative for the present to continuing to pay grants in respect of non-pay expenditure on a capitation basis.

On the issue of staffing, he noted: there are wide variations in levels of staffing. However, in this case, the Department does consider that some rational basis of staffing can be worked out. Moreover, it is relation to the setting up of a recognised framework of staff salaries that the most insistent pressure is coming on the implementation of the Kennedy recommendation about financing. In regard to staffing, it may be said that the information supplied by homes is not a reliable guide to appropriate levels of staffing in that a low staff cost is more likely to indicate an inadequate service than to reflect prudent economy. In very few cases could staffing be regarded as adequate by present day standards in other countries.

He further elaborated that: In fact, the question of staffing could be regarded as the major weakness of the system as it is at present. New buildings and reconstruction grants are gradually bringing matters to a point where it will not be possible to allege that children are housed in poor accommodation. The authorities of the homes are solicitous in relation to the material well-being of the children in their care and it could not be denied that the children in these homes to-day are well-fed and adequately clothed and that they have proper medical services available. These are relatively tangible and measurable things, however. The real test of the quality of service provided by the homes lies in their success in fostering the personal development of the children. Many of these children come from broken homes and the painful experience of home life in these situations means that most of them carry some measure of emotional disturbance. The care of these children requires trained staff but, more importantly, adequate numbers of staff.

What was now required, he argued, was: to determine appropriate pay rates. It is perhaps the most persistent source of complaint in regard to financing that recognised rates of pay do not exist and that religious engaged in the work are not paid. The modern concept of residential child care is that it is a professional task, calling for certain qualities and skills. The idea of substitute parenthood is outdated. Formerly many of the children in the homes were illegitimate or orphans and came into the home as babies. With the development of adoption and fosterage this is no longer the case. Most children now coming into care have parents of their own and are in care because of a break-down in the natural home or of relationships within the home. Not only do they require the ‘nurturing’ care which parents normally provide; they also require remedial care relating in various degrees to the physical and mental damage which they have suffered in the home environment.

He further elaborated on the nature of children in residential care and the implications for child care workers. Some of these children express their disturbance in many forms of antisocial behaviour, ranging from violent aggression to complete withdrawal. The remedial task of the residential care worker is to assist such children to overcome the trauma of their home experience, to adjust to the residential situation and, in spite of its inherent disadvantages, to attain therein their full potential as human beings. He must always have in mind that the child should be returned to his natural home as soon as it is feasible to do so – this involves close liaison with the Health Boards and other agencies working to rehabilitate the entire family. Residential child care, therefore is now developing as a distinct discipline, with different levels of expertise. It has some of the elements of the task of social worker, the teachers and the nurse, together with separate qualities of its own.

In 1975, the Department of Education commissioned a detailed analysis of the financing of residential homes, which was completed in February.338 The report concluded that the present system of payments to homes from a variety of sources is administratively wasteful and places unnecessary burdens on the homes. Payments should be made, in present circumstances, only by the Department of Education which would subsequently recover the appropriate payments from the local authorities and the Department of Health.’

The report recommended that a budget system be put in place on the following grounds (a)It is administratively less expensive than direct payment of careworkers’ salaries. (b)It gives the Department greater control over expenditure in the homes and consequently over policy-making in the homes - capitation grants give the homes greater freedom to develop and implement their own policies. (c)Capitation grants are being phased out as a system of financing by the Department of Health. If residential homes are made the responsibility of the Department of Health, the transfer of responsibility would be facilitated by the introduction of budget financing as soon as possible. (d)It can be operated to facilitate homes in providing a satisfactory superannuation scheme.

However, the Department of Education continued to favour the capitation scheme on the grounds that it gave the homes greater freedom to manage their own affairs and to decide their own priorities. The Department of Finance on the other hand, in correspondence with the Department of Education on 20th February 1976, favoured another option outlined in the report, a capitation grant, but the salaries paid directly by the Department of Education, with the proviso that no additional staff could be employed in the homes and that contributions by local authorities be maintained in the same proportion as the currently paid. The Department of Education were in broad agreement with the report, but noted that salaries should take cognisance of the fact that staff did not work a rigid 40-hour week and would have to work anti-social hours. On the issue of the Department of Education paying the staff salaries directly, the Department replied to the Department of Finance stating they were: very doubtful about this. It would mean creating what would be to all intents a new cadre of public servants, paid directly by the State. Would your proposal that we pay these staff at their existing rates be workable? Some are paid nothing at all, some take notional salaries out of the grant, some are paid varying amounts, depending on what the particular home can afford. A few are being paid the rates for Lusk and Finglas, which we consider too high for the residential homes. If the State takes over, a claim for uniformity of remuneration will be irresistible and it will go for the highest level rather than the lowest. All the staff basically are doing the same job. With the State as paymaster these staffs would immediately become unionised and thereby gain immediate access to the Labour Court. We have been very disappointed at the rigid Union attitudes which have developed in Lusk and Finglas and which have led to demands which we consider grossly excessive....The Department is of the view that nothing should be done which would detract from the voluntary character of all these homes – whether they are financially supported by this Department, the Department of Health or a mixture of the two. The State should not interfere in this sensitive area any more than is necessary.

In addition to recommending a budget method of financing, the report recommended that the system of parental contributions, which applied to some children committed to the homes, be discontinued. The basis for this was that: it is clear that contributions from parents make at best a trivial contribution to the financing of the homes and indeed it is quite likely that the contribution is a negative one. There is no financial justification for these contributions and on the other hand it involves the Department of Education and the Gardaí in debt collection which does little to enhance the public image of either party.