FROM AUGUST 2014'S RECRUITER MAGAZINE

We recently published ‘Voices from the Front Line: Supporting our social workers in the delivery of quality services to children’ — a comprehensive research report and the result of our collaboration with the Victoria Climbié Foundation UK (VCF).

Anyone who knows even a small amount about social work will be familiar with the massive caseloads and too few staff scenario. As a leading supplier of both permanent and temporary social workers to local authorities, this is a situation we are unfortunately all too familiar with.

Daily we speak to our social workers who keep what is widely regarded as one of the best child protection systems in the world on its feet. They support a system that is lauded for its accountability, stability, continuity, local collaboration with local organisations and experienced and committed leadership. The reality of social work, however, couldn’t be more different.

With the assent of the Children and Families Act in April, VCF and HCL Social Care collaborated to take a closer look at the critical workforce that underpins our best-in-class system. At the same time, severe budget cuts across local authorities subsequently have overwhelmed an already struggling workforce.

Moreover, these budget cuts come at a time when demand for child protection has never been higher. The number of children coming into care has increased by 25% since 2009-10 and the amount of children with protection plans has increased by almost 40%. Social workers are being left to take the strain, working long hours with ridiculous caseloads — and now the Act has tightened the screws still further by placing tight deadlines on procedures from adoption to taking a child into care.

Undertaking the research, to which almost 500 locum and permanent social workers responded, was a humbling experience, with their frustration palpable. Again and again we heard of the lack of management support, overwhelming bureaucracy and administration, desire to be consulted and listened to, lack of training and the massive inconsistencies in recruitment and retention practices across the country, which we are, of course, familiar with.  

It is galling to receive feedback from locum candidates that they were interviewed in a rushed half hour over a cup of coffee. Within the locum market, the responsibility for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) rests with the individual social worker. This means that in the current climate of local authority budget cuts and cost efficiencies, locum social workers are often excluded from in-house training initiatives that are widely available to their permanent colleagues. The social worker is then faced with the dilemma of working and getting paid or training and losing wages. 

We can only hope that incoming Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan take the recruitment and retention challenge within the social work system seriously — starting with its people — and make it an immediate priority. Voices from the front line tells us that the workforce is in a pressure cooker and it is only a matter of time before the lid blows.

As an experienced social worker explained anonymously in a comment in the report: “There is a lot of paperwork, unmanageable case loads, you will get paid for 37 hours per week and do a minimum of 50. You will not get rich, be liked and there is very little time for your own family.” 

Gary Chatfield is managing director, HCL Social Care

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