S CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SELECT COMMITTEE 25 th November 2009

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1 S CHILDREN AND FAMILIES SELECT COMMITTEE 25 th November 2009 Social Worker Recruitment PURPOSE OF REPORT: Policy development and review To review the Council s progress in improving its performance on social worker recruitment. SUMMARY: The Improvement Notice requires the social work vacancy rate within children s services to reduce to 14% by 31 March 2009 and 12% by March This report provides a progress update on actions at a local, regional and national level including the national social work task force and the Leader s bursary scheme. PROGRESS The table in appendix 1. shows the current position in respect of social worker recruitment. This gives an effective vacancy rate of xx which is a significant improvement and means the Council has met its target in terms of the improvement notice. Since January the number of locum staff has reduced from just over 70 to just over 40, successfully reducing budget pressures. The package of measures approved by the Personnel and Appointments Committee has been successful in helping us to attract more candidates to Surrey, though most of these tend to be newly qualified social workers. Local Initiatives 1. The new Leader of the Council announced his commitment to supporting social work development in his inaugural speech in June through the creation of 50 annual bursaries for young people to train as social workers and 10 bursaries for existing social workers to extend their professional skills. Work began over the summer to turn this commitment into reality within the constraints of the current national funding scheme. Currently the Government Page 1 of 5

2 provides all eligible social work students with a bursary of plus fees. To be eligible for this funding the student cannot be employed in social care (though some experience in social care is necessary to enrol on the University course) and nor can they be in receipt of any employer funding, other than a retention payment with a return of service expectation. This means, in effect, we can only give a retention bursary to those students we are willing to commit to employ. We can only really make this assessment towards the end of their training when they are ready to commit to specialising in adults or children s with us as an employer. We do have around 50 social work students across adults and children s who have placements with Surrey in the spring of their final university year. Students placed with us, or from elsewhere can now register their interest online in working for us, and the Leader s retention bursary. We will then hold some assessment days in the spring and offer those we wish to employ a Leader s retention bursary to secure their commitment to start with us in the September when they are GSCC registered. The payment will be useful to them as they are likely to be in some debt towards the end of their training. It should also help us to secure sufficient social worker numbers to fill our vacancies from September The restrictions on the Government bursary scheme are unhelpful as it means people have to leave their employer to get Government support for their social work degree. Alternatively they may undertake the degree as a funded degree course but have little real aptitude for social work. SCC will continue to lobby for a more partnership approach with employers in this area. The funding for social workers to extend their skills will be accommodated through the Council s existing post qualification training support. 2. As well as the Leader s retention bursary a range of other schemes supporting social work are being adopted in Surrey as a result of Children s Workforce Development Commission funding as outlined in appendix 2. In particular we have secured grant funding for 4 (1 dropped out for personal reasons) fast track graduates who will also receive the Leader s retention bursary. 3. The social worker recruitment taskforce was set up by HR in December 2008 and started to take effect in January This increased investment from HR has continued to relieve pressures on managers and provide focus to this difficult problem. A recruitment and retention strategy appendix 3 - has been prepared which emphasises the importance of retention and development, rather than just recruitment as the answer to the problem. Moving forward improving the skills of frontline managers in supporting and engaging their staff will be critical as feedback from exit interviews has highlighted some issues in this area. Page 2 of 5

3 2. Regional initiative lead by Surrey looking at boosting the supply of children s social workers. Colleagues from authorities across the South East, GOSE, UNISON, CAFFCASS and IDeA have been working together to raise the profile of this acute problem, with some success. An employer s charter was developed with a 10-point action plan for change that was submitted to the national task force, DCSF and the MP s select committee looking into this issue. Agreement has been reached and funding secured to support a regional recruitment portal for employers that should reduce advertising costs. Regional discussions at ADCS have highlighted the need for Universities to be more responsive to employer s needs. 3. National action: The Laming report: the protection of children in England; a progress report identifies workforce issues as one of the key areas to address to improve the quality and performance of children s services. Its recommendations include asking the national social work task force to: develop the basis for a national children s social worker supply strategy that will address recruitment and retention difficulties, to be implemented by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. This should have a particular emphasis on child protection social workers; work with the Children s Workforce Development Council and other partners to implement, on a national basis, clear progression routes for children s social workers; develop national guidelines setting out maximum case-loads of children in need and child protection cases, supported by a weighting mechanism to reflect the complexity of cases that will help plan the workloads of children s social workers; and develop a strategy for remodelling children s social work which delivers shared ownership of cases, administrative support and multi-disciplinary support to be delivered nationally. The General Social Care Council, together with relevant government departments, should: work with higher education institutions and employers to raise the quality and consistency of social work degrees and strengthen their curriculums to provide high quality practical skills in children s social work; work with higher education institutions to reform the current degree programme towards a system that allows for specialism in children s social work, including statutory children s social work placements, after the first year; and The Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills should introduce a fully-funded, practice-focused children s social work postgraduate qualification for experienced children s social workers, with an expectation they will complete the programme as soon as is practicable. Page 3 of 5

4 working with the Children s Workforce Development Council, General Social Care Council and partners should introduce a conversion qualification and English language test for internationally qualified children s social workers that ensures understanding of legislation, guidance and practice in England. Consideration should be given to the appropriate length of a compulsory induction period in a practice setting prior to formal registration as a social worker in England. The Social work task force was due to report in October but it appears this report will be late. Its interim report did not respond adequately to the points raised in our 10 point plan and the MP s select committee was critical of the lack of radical thinking in the task force approach. A new televised recruitment campaign for social work has been launched with a significant response. It remains to be seen as to whether this will deliver people with the right skills to do the job in practice. Future trends Pressure on local authority budgets and a renewed focus on child protection means that it is likely we will have fewer social workers than we do now in children s services, but the are likely to be engaged in high need rather than preventative work which may be undertaken by other professionals/family support workers. The current restructure in Children s services will redefine the number of social workers we need in different areas which is likely to affect the nature of the recruitment and retention issue. We will need to think about how we avoid social workers burning out when faced with challenging caseloads and how we train the unqualified workforce to deliver the prevention agenda. In Surrey by reviewing the thresholds to services we have been able to reduce caseloads to a manageable number, but this has reduced capacity for preventative work with families. We continue to await the report of the national social work task force with interest. FINANCIAL AND VALUE FOR MONEY IMPLICATIONS The reduction in the number of locum staff has reduced budget pressures as they have been replaced with permanent staff. Providing a sustainable budget that can cope with the volume of work, and keeping our salary package affordable and competitive will continue to be challenge for the service. Page 4 of 5

5 EQUALITIES AND DIVERSITY IMPLICATIONS Social workers come from ethnically diverse backgrounds and a number of overseas social workers continue to be employed in the service. With Laming recommending new restrictions on employing overseas social workers it is likely this source of recruitment will reduce. There is a new regional and national initiative to encourage social workers that have left the profession to return to practice, it remains to be seen whether sufficient workers will come forward through this initiative. RECOMMENDATIONS: To report back on progress to the select committee in late Spring 2010, once the national social work taskforce reports, the restructure of the frontline service is completed and the selection process for leader s bursary scheme delivered. NEXT STEPS Regional and national lobbying to re-focus government funding to support employer based routes to social worker training and development Regional and national lobbying to introduce proper national workforce planning for the profession with Universities pressured to increase the quality and supply of training offered Social worker recruitment and retention strategy to be delivered by agreeing an action plan jointly owned with the service Leader s bursary scheme to secure students as employees from Spring REPORT AUTHOR: Emily Boynton CONTACT DETAILS: Emily.boynton@surreycc.gov.uk Sources/background papers: Laming report: The protection of children in England: a progress report Appendices: 1. Fortnightly recruitment dashboard 2. Supporting social work schemes 3. Recruitment and retention strategy Page 5 of 5