Agenda item

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years and Tracy Nurse, Head of Service for Children’s Social Work introduced the item on social worker recruitment, retention and case load management. They gave a presentation outlining the current position of the social worker workforce and work over the last year to try and ensure that there is sufficient capacity within the workforce to deliver services. They highlighted the following points:

(a)  there are currently 150 children’s social work posts across Nottingham City Council;

(b)  the use of agency social workers has reduced from around 65 to just 21 in recent years and staff turnover has reduced from 20% in 2015 to be in line with the national average of 15% in 2017;

(c)  in its most recent inspection, Nottingham City Council was described by Ofsted as an “employer of choice” for social workers;

(d)  the Council has a strong ASYE (Assessed and Supported Year of Employment) programme for newly qualified social workers which has achieved national recognition. It provides newly qualified social workers with experience across the different teams allowing them to build knowledge and skills, and offers a protected caseload of 15 cases;

(e)  the fast track Grow Our Own social work degree provided in conjunction with Manchester Metropolitan University allows family support workers to gain formal qualifications in social work over 2 years and then allows them to become registered social workers. The first cohort contains 22 people, and the second contains 10;

(f)  Nottingham City Council also has a bespoke recruitment programme for social workers. It is an open advert and allows streamlined recruitment of experienced social workers;

(g)  for existing experienced staff there is the Progression Panel, which aims to invest in staff. It aims to meet with the more experienced social workers, discuss their aspirations and look at succession planning, then deliver a programme of support and development;

(h)  regular practice improvement sessions run which ensures consistent service allowing different parts of the service to support each other at times of need. It also ensures that social workers feel that they are practicing safely and are supported;

(i)  robust management of caseload ensures that social workers do not get overwhelmed. Performance reports look at case load across all of the teams every week allowing for early identification of pressure points which then allows extra measures to be taken to offer support if necessary.  A lot of focus is on the early intervention stage to reduce demand further down the line.

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

(j)  current caseloads range from 15 to 25 but the average is between 18 and 23 cases per social worker;

(k)  a Committee member spoke about having met social workers from across the different teams and commented that their dedication and commitment to their roles was evident;

(l)  it is important that work to promote Nottingham City as a good place to live and work continues in order to encourage social workers to live and work in the City;

The Chair concluded that, having reviewed progress over a number of years, the Committee was satisfied with the management focus on, and investment in recruitment and retention of children’s social workers and that there was no need for the Committee to scrutinise this issue further unless any particular issues arose.

RESOLVED to thank Tracy Nurse and David Mellen for their attendance and to note the content of their report.