‘Oh, what a tangled web…’ — The continuing, curious and concerning tale of Sanctuary Personnel Social Work News
UPDATE 04/07/23 — Sanctuary Personnel (and it’s hydra-heads of associated businesses) and Seven Resourcing (with whom it appears to have recently partnered) have been sold to ‘funds advised by Agilitas Private Equity LLP, a pan-European mid-market private equity firm’. Private recruitment companies unilaterally bringing opaque investors into the recruitment and employment of social workers is indicative of the problem of privatisation and marketisation in social work and demonstrates once again the impulse to put profit before people.
This is an addendum to my previous blog ‘“And the winner is…” — Why we still need to talk about the Social Work Awards’ which provides background/context to what follows. In brief, the concerns set out in that blog are:
- Social Work News is the magazine of Sanctuary Personnel, a private company turning over in excess of £100m per year for providing agency social workers and whole team solutions to local authorities;
- Sanctuary Personnel has been the key sponsor of the Social Work Awards for the past ten years, during which time its revenue and portfolio of businesses have grown significantly; other sponsors include the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and Social Work England, alongside a number of local authorities — all of which raises questions about access and networking that may have benefitted Sanctuary;
- Social Work News appears to have used email contacts harvested from Sanctuary’s database and other sources to send promotional emails without the consent of some recipients;
- Sanctuary Personnel has appointed deregulation/privatisation advocate Sir Martin Narey as a non-executive director to advise on its bid to move beyond recruitment to become a ‘solutions provider’;
- Sanctuary Personnel, under its Innovate banner, has recently expanded into specialist children’s residential care;
- Sanctuary Personnel’s profits increased by almost £1.5m in 2020, while local authorities struggled to meet the needs of their populations against a backdrop of politically-chosen austerity and a global pandemic (the adverse impact of both of which on working conditions for social workers has been, and will continue to be, very substantial).
Sanctuary Social Work News editorial board
I noted with interest the other day that Sanctuary Personnel’s Social Work News magazine finally got round to publishing details of its editorial board following months of opaqueness and avoidance of valid questions posed by me and others about that matter. Having previously stated some months ago that it had convened an editorial board and then, in June this year, an advisory board, Sanctuary Personnel Social Work News has only very recently published details of either. This lack of transparency is, as far as I am aware, unheard of in the world of social work publishing, where trust in sources and editorial integrity are paramount.
The make up of the board raises a number of further questions and concerns about this magazine, which positions itself as ‘a magazine for social workers, by social workers’.
Representation of social work’s professional regulator on the board of Sanctuary Personnel social work news
Sanctuary Personnel’s Social Work News has an editorial team and an ‘editorial advisory board’. It is unclear whether any of the roles are paid/remunerated.
On the editorial advisory board is Ahmina Akhtar, whose bio states she is ‘Social Work England’s Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’. Also on the board is Catherine Elphee, who according to her bio is ‘External Relations Officer for Social Work England’s communications team’. That two employees of our professional regulator are on the board of a magazine run by a company that benefits to the tune of millions of pounds a year from social work workforce instability must surely raise concerns about conflict of interest. Or perhaps this is what Social Work England means by ‘collaboration and dialogue with anyone with an interest in social work’. Either way, it raises the question of whether Social Work England’s Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and External Relations Officer are on the board of Sanctuary Personnel’s Social Work News in an official capacity, or as private individuals.
UPDATE 15/12/21: Having revisited the Social Work News website today I notice that neither Ahmina Akhtar nor Catherine Elphee of Social Work England are listed as members of the magazine’s editorial advisory board.
I note also that an unpaid BASW committee member is on the magazine’s advisory board which taken alongside the magazine’s heralding of its work with ‘Social Work England, the NSPCC, The Student Social Work Hub, BASW, and Social Work Action Group’ could be taken to suggest affiliation.
Sanctuary Social Work News — ‘The voice of the profession’, or mouthpiece for the private sector?
Sanctuary Personnel Social Work News consistently positions itself as ‘a voice of the profession’. The consulting editor’s bio states he is ‘excited to help Social Work News be the voice of our profession’ (emphasis added). These are ambitious goals, and ones we probably ought to be concerned about. Can a private company making millions from social work at the public’s expense ever really be a voice for the social work profession, let alone THE voice of the profession? It’s possibly alarmist to flag this as a potential existential threat to our professional association but it is at the very least noteworthy.
I strongly believe social workers should approach Sanctuary Personnel Social Work News with extreme caution, because despite its vaunted advocacy of social work and social workers and its aspirations to be The Voice Of The Profession, the magazine’s foundations are firmly rooted in the interests of a £multimillion expanding empire of businesses which profits, at the public’s expense, from social work and, more recently, from the provision of specialist residential children’s care. I do not deny that Sanctuary Social Work News has provided a platform for social workers to talk about issues that matter to social workers but, we should ask, at what cost? I would always caution any social worker against burning the wood that props up the house, for the glow soon fades. And what is left after that?
