Moral Risks in the Social Work Role: A Response to Macdonald

Abstract

ordained procedures. Social workers are often held personally respon sible in cases where they have followed the procedures to the best of their ability and judgement. Is this always merely unreasonable, a sign of prejudice, faulty moralizing or structural bias? In her article 'Allocat ing Blame in Social Work' Geraldine Macdonald (this issue) argues that any responsibility here is collective—for instance that of the social servi ces department concerned or of the wider political or social system— and so not to be assigned to individuals. Since much of Macdonald's argument proceeds by way of objection to our earlier article 'Moral Risks in Social Work' (Hollis and Howe, 1987), we welcome the chance to explore the issue further. Before taking up matters of dispute, we wish to stress that our starting point was different from hers. We began with the undoubted fact that social workers are regularly hauled before enquiries and held personally responsible, despite having worked within the due procedures. We asked whether these verdicts could be found a reasonable explanation and argued that the social worker's role is informed by powerful but contradictory demands, which meant that 'moral risk' of some kind is inherent in the job. When the risk goes wrong, it is at least intelligible that the risk-taker be blamed. Whether it is also reasonable in any impartial sense is, of course, a further question. We went on to argue that to accept the role is to accept personal responsibility for its exercise and hence for the moral risk inherent in difficult decisions. We