Organisational Justice and Child Protection Social Work

Abstract

This article reviews the current state of child protection social work in the United Kingdom (UK) and looks at the various solutions that have been advanced. It asks whether the concept of “organisational justice” may be applied as a new means of understanding and challenging an old problem, that of social worker satisfaction with the job. This article will suggest a strategy to address the gap between hard facts and soft feelings and perceptions. The concept of organisational justice is not new but has been refined and is guiding contemporary thinking, primarily in the private sector. The focus of organisational justice is the role of fairness as a consideration in the workplace and, in particular, the employee’s perception of fairness. This article will outline the subsections of organisational justice. These are content (perceptions of distributive justice within the agency), process (procedural justice), and interactions (interpersonal and informational justice) (Greenberg, 1990). A review of the literature so far available on the link between organisational justice and social work plus a small-scale research project will help to reveal the relevance of organisational justice to the problem of social worker satisfaction. A discussion of how local authorities can address each of the components of organisational justice is provided at the end.