Friendly fire

When Denise Platt meets people socially they often assume she has a police car and driver waiting outside. It must be the job title. The chief inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate seems to think this is also the reason why she is inundated with "peculiar" unsolicited emails. One US correspondent thought the chief inspector had worldwide jurisdiction and wanted to know her reaction to a Supreme Court judgment on a child abuse case in Winnebago County. "I sent an email back saying I was afraid I had no idea!"

Platt has worked her way from hospital social work to the helm of social services for Hammersmith and Fulham council and then the Local Government Association, sitting on government quangos and review groups.

Though she plays down the grandeur of her present job title and is far from the overpowering personality one might expect, there is something in her that appears to love the limelight. Her big moment came in May, when the SSI published the first-ever star ratings for social services departments. "When I went back home to Cheshire, people in the village came up to me and said 'we saw you on TV'," she recalls, her face brightening at the memory. "We did a lot of regional press and TV interviews – we were determined to help the good councils get good coverage."

Platt's new-found public profile illuminates several aspects of today's culture of inspection in public services. For a start, it would have been unthinkable when Platt took the SSI job in 1998, inheriting a traditional, box-ticking inspection style. But the government's policy of linking inspections to raising standards is slowly turning the clipboard brigade from harbingers of doom to unlikely consumer champions.

Meanwhile, the tone of the media coverage garnered by Platt's department – where the press office directed journalists to high-performing councils, and regional papers produced headlines such as "Leicestershire joins the Premier League" – shows how Whitehall has moved on from the "naming and shaming" approach exemplified by former Ofsted chief Chris Woodhead.

Now, as the housing sector looks ahead to its own dedicated, single inspectorate, the SSI could provide a model for the tactics and profile it might adopt. Platt herself picks out SSI's position as the social services manager's friend. "Managers regard it as tough; they wouldn't see us as a pushover. But we never walk away, which makes us different from other inspection regimes." If the SSI identifies weaknesses, it appoints a link inspector to stay in touch, maintain dialogue and receive monthly updates.

If there are other lessons to be learned or best practice to be shared, it's likely that Platt will be keen to oblige. In her parallel role as director for children, older people and social care services at the Department of Health, she is already steering the DoH towards greater cross-ministry collaboration on housing issues. "The DoH is very interested in health, social services and housing linking up on the ground. There's lots of joint departmental working these days."

The DoH is very interested in health, social services and housing linking up on the ground. There’s a lot of joint working

Eighteen months ago, the DoH seconded a housing specialist to work on establishing links with other departments. "We want to develop more housing with care, so that people have more choices," says Platt. She mentions a recent joint summit with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on housing for older people, to be followed by publication of joint guidelines on the subject.

But perhaps Whitehall could still learn from what she feels are the generally good working relationships already established between housing officers and social services caseworkers. In fact, how well social workers communicate with housing departments or housing associations is already reflected in the star rating system. But she concedes that "in a large two-tier council, the county social services department might be dealing with six different housing departments. The logistics can be complicated".

In councils where interdepartmental contacts could be improved, she urges councillors to take on a greater role. "They are the community leaders, it's their will and motivation that get policies off the ground. Where councillors get together in local forums, representing the policy portfolios for a geographic area, to think about how to serve local people, it's often easier for officers to work towards greater collaboration."

Asked for further suggestions on how social services and housing could integrate more, she defers to the opinions of the service users themselves. "We always encourage social services to ask people at the receiving end of the service what they think. It's not a question of sitting here and thinking up something fancy and imposing it, but actually finding out what people want."

Platt traces her motivation to go into social work to a period of ill-health as a teenager. An extended hospital stay brought her into contact with patients and relatives who had found the scripts of their lives suddenly rewritten by accident, disability or illness.

She is clearly still motivated by service users' stories, and makes a point of getting out of Whitehall and into social services departments on informal visits. In the six weeks before the interview, she had made two a week, from Windsor to Hull to Blackburn. In Windsor, she met a group of young people who had left care and were living in housing association accommodation with 24-hour support. "It's only by talking to people doing the job that I can keep in touch with what it feels like to deliver council services. I like to meet the people doing the jobs, and the people using the services."