Agenda item

Helen Blackman, Director of Integrated Children’s Services, introduced a report on social worker recruitment, retention and caseload management. Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years provided additional information. They highlighted the following points:

(a)  Nationally there is high demand for Social Workers. Since 2009 there have been some big changes in legislation and high profile cases which have caused a lot of turbulence in social care. This has led to a very mobile workforce with lowered retention and it is common practice for social work agencies to approach permanent staff with offers of much higher rates of pay than permanent roles;

(b)  Nationally, in 2009 1 in 9 social work roles were not filled and in 2015-16 there was a 10% increase in agency joiners;

(c)  the title “Social Worker” is a protected title, social workers are required by law to register, have their training audited and there is an expectation of continuous development and training;

(d)  Nationally the annual turnover of Social Workers is around 15%. Nottingham City currently has an annual turnover of around 11%. Approximately 19% of the Council’s Social Workers are agency staff, which is comparable to other local authorities in the East Midlands;

(e)  Over the last three years Nottingham City Council has over recruited newly qualified Social Workers who have then started an assessed and supported year of employment (ASYE). This programme allows them to experience the different aspects of social work across a range of teams and gain a solid grounding to becoming a long term member of social work staff at the Council. It has been very successful  and had a positive impact on existing Social Workers;

(f)  In addition to the ASYE scheme there is a new “Grow Our Own” scheme which, in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University provides a fast track distance learning course for existing staff with experience of social work roles but who are not qualified as Social Workers, such as play and youth staff. The degree takes 2 years and costs are covered by a work place loan paid back over a number of years on qualification. There has been good uptake with 28 students on the first cohort;

(g)  Case load management is still challenging. Nottingham City Council aims for all Social Workers to have 23 cases or less.  This is generally achieved, although there are still a number of Social Workers who’s caseload exceeds this number;

(h)  The Council is also doing well in converting agency staff into permanent staff. In the last 4 months 8 agency staff have become permanent members of staff;

(i)  OFSTED described Nottingham City Council as an employer of choice for Social Workers and recognised it as a place where social work can flourish. It acknowledged the investment in social work working to ensure a stable and secure workforce;

Following questions and comments from the Committee the following points were highlighted:

(j)  Early intervention work could be an easy target for cuts as they are not statutory services. However, a reduction of resources there would lead to less work with families at an earlier stage, families in need of help would be identified at a later stage leading to more intensive work by Social Workers when children have suffered for longer and are more expensive to support. Retention of Early Intervention Services reduces pressure on Social Workers and identifies families in need of support early;

(k)  The ASYE scheme has been an important tool for recruitment and development of Social Workers. It would be beneficial for this scheme to continue to run as staff recruited and trained are more likely to stay within the Council longer term;

(l)  There is an agreement with the other regional local authorities that no council will pay above a certain amount for Social work agency staff. The agencies are offering permanent staff between 50-100% more than their regular wage to become agency workers, so the council has to find a very fine balance between not paying too much for agency staff, but also having enough agency staff to alleviate the work load of permanent staff so as not to push them to join the agencies;

(m)  The local universities were approached to design the bespoke “grow our own” scheme for the distance learning social work degree, however they could not offer the course and Manchester Metropolitan was the only institute who could offer the fast track course in the format the Council felt was most appropriate;

(n)  The Council has considered forming a regional agency with other local authorities, however given the large sums of money being offered to agency staff it makes travel outside of the region more attractive;

(o)  Nottingham currently has around 19% agency staff. Looking at the national picture there are more people leaving social work than joining making retention more difficult. Nottingham City is working hard to be a good authority to work for, rewarding work with challenging cases. The Council wants to be attractive to work for because of the difference it makes to lives and believes that this will be attractive to potential employees;

(p)  National attitude to social work is one of the major influences on the reduction of people joining social work.  It is an emotionally demanding job, with long and unsociable hours all of which contributes to its decline in appeal as a career.

RESOLVED to thank Councillor David Mellen and Helen Blackman for their attendance and to note the content of the report.