Social work leaders come together to tackle mounting workforce issues

Social Work England convenes group to examine and develop solutions on recruitment, retention and agency work, in face of rising vacancies and pressures, but warns change will not happen overnight

review meeting
Photo: jcomp/Fotolia

Will the Social Work England-convened working group improve the recruitment and retention of social workers?

  • No, it looks like it will just be a talking shop (71%, 133 Votes)
  • Not without the DfE involved (23%, 43 Votes)
  • Yes, it has the right people around the table to make a difference (6%, 11 Votes)

Total Voters: 187

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Social work leaders have come together to forge solutions to mounting workforce challenges in England.

Social Work England has convened a group including representatives from government, employers and professional bodies, to tackle the severe recruitment and retention pressures being faced across the country. Though the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which is responsible for adults’ social work, is represented, the Department for Education (DfE), which handles children’s social work, does not appear to be, currently.

The group will meet every six weeks and has agreed to establish three workstreams focused on recruitment, retention of experienced staff and agency and other working practices, respectively. Sub-groups for each workstream will be set up shortly and they will then report their findings to the wider strategic group.

However, Social Work England said that, while the organisations involved recognised the urgency of the situation, change could not happen overnight, as the pressures facing social work were deep rooted.

Mounting workforce pressures

The initiative comes with the latest workforce figures for English local authorities revealing a deteriorating picture across children’s and adults’ services, including that:

High workloads, stress, real-terms pay cuts, the impact of Covid on workforce wellbeing and public negativity about social work – particularly in the light of the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson cases – have all been blamed for driving people away from the profession.

Dispute over impact of agency work

At the same time, directors of children’s services have raised increasing concerns about certain agency practices, including supplying project teams, rather than individual workers, and enabling locums to have limited caseloads and more remote working arrangements than permanent staff.

In its draft children’s social care strategy, issued last month, the DfE issued a number of proposals to tackle workforce pressures in children’s services, notably rules to restrict the use of agency staff, including a ban on project teams.

However, both social work agencies and Community Care readers have warned these would worsen the situation by driving locum staff out of the profession, and no similar initiatives have been launched in relation to adults’ services or beyond local government.

Need for whole-profession response

In an interview with Community Care, Social Work England’s executive director of professional practice and external engagement, Sarah Blackmore, said the point of the new group was to look at the issues facing the workforce strategically, and across the whole profession, in order to develop sustainable solutions.

“One of the reasons that, as the regulator, we’ve been involved in this is a general concern about the fragmentation of the social work sector generally, and in relation to workforce issues, and also the suggestion of very helpful, but tactical, responses to what is a whole-systems issue.

“Though there are issues that may be felt at times more in some parts of the sector, as far as we’re concerned workforce is a whole-systems issue and it needs a whole-systems response if we’re going to bring about long-term, sustainable and meaningful change.”

Agency staff ‘will always be needed’

Among the “tactical” solutions put forward by some were ending agency work and making greater use of social care staff to carry out work currently performed by social workers, she said.

“There will never be a situation where we won’t require some level of agency input,” Blackmore said. “We need to be honest and recognise that. What we need to be clear with agencies is with mutual expectations. Where there are agency practices that are not for the good of the profession, like saying they won’t have to do face to face visits, which is in breach of professional standards, we can’t have that.”

While there are is no agency representation currently on the group Social Work England has set up, she said it was looking to bring this in.

On making greater use of social care staff, Blackmore added: “There’s a danger of the integrity of the [social work] profession being eroded. We need social care workers being where they are and they can’t just take on this work because of workforce issues in social work.”

She said Social Work England would provide the administration for the group and also make use of the data it holds on the profession to inform its work. This has been enriched recently by the vast majority of registered practitioners providing details on their protected characteristics on their online accounts with Social Work England.

Equality, diversity and inclusion ‘will be fundamental’

“The social work profession has been very generous in sharing their EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] data with us,” she said. “That gives us an unprecedented level of information to inform this work. It’s really an example of how, as the specialist regulator, we want to work in partnership with our key stakeholders to effect that long-lasting and meaningful change, not just for the profession but for the public.”

She said EDI was “a fundamental that will have to flow through the work we do”, given the “real issues of disproportionality” faced by students and social workers from minoritised groups, for example, in relation to fitness to practise and career progression.

Reflecting on the group’s work as a whole, she added: “These issues are longstanding and won’t be resolved overnight, but we are determined to work together so that they will be resolved.”

Among the group’s members are the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), the Adult Principal Social Worker (APSW) Network and the Principal Children and Families Social Worker (PCFSW) Network.

Voice of practitioners and people using services ‘will be central’

For BASW, chief executive Ruth Allen said: “We welcome and fully support this initiative to bring a dedicated focus to the issues with the social work workforce. As well as urgent actions to stabilise recruitment, retention and morale, we need effective whole-profession strategies to tackle systemic problems for the longer term.

“The group includes leaders from all the main parts of statutory social work and BASW will ensure that the voice and experience of practitioners and people using services are central to collective thinking and action.”

The chairs of the two PSW networks said: “We recognise the issues across the whole professional workforce particularly around attracting and retaining people into social work. We feel strongly we can’t address these issues, without taking action to identify and address these systemic issues we know are faced by practitioners including racism and varied responses to equality, diversity and inclusion.

“We feel optimistic that this roundtable will be a change agent bringing together the work already being undertaken in DHSC [the Department of Health and Social Care] and DfE as well as initiating new cross-profession workstreams. Through our leadership we will ensure that both PSW networks are central to this vital work.”

Working group membership and terms of reference

The group will meet every six weeks and will be chaired by Social Work England, with a co-chair to be agreed. It currently includes:

  • from government, the chief social worker for adults, Lyn Romeo, and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC);
  • from senior management, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and other director representatives;
  • from practice leadership, the Adult Principal Social Workers network, the Principal Children and Families Social Worker (PCFSW) Network, practice leader representatives and the AMHP Leads Network;
  • from professional bodies and unions, the British Association of Social Workers and UNISON;
  • people with lived experience of social work;
  • from local government, the Local Government Association and senior management body SOLACE;
  • from inspection and regulation, the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted;
  • from social work education, the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee;
  • from workforce development, Skills for Care and Health Education England;
  • from research and practice development, Research in Practice and the Social Care Institute for Excellence.

Its purpose is to:

  1. Share advice, expertise and strategic leadership to help set a national direction for the social work workforce.
  2. Strengthen partnership working and deepen relationships between system leaders, establishing a shared understanding of roles, responsibilities and levers they hold in relation to the workforce.
  3. Steer the work of the three workstreams on: recruitment and attracting new social workers; agency work, international recruitment and the role of social care staff; retaining experienced staff.

Social Work England has said it wants practitioners to get involved in this work and will be providing more details on how to do so in due course.

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18 Responses to Social work leaders come together to tackle mounting workforce issues

  1. Ray Jones March 3, 2023 at 4:26 pm #

    Surely there’s a mistake here. Unlike noting that the chief social worker for adults and the DH are involved with others, are the chief social worker for children and the DfE not engaging? Would be very strange, especially as they have set off on a journey in England to reshape and restructure the social work careers of those who work within statutory children’s services. Does this article need correcting?

    • Nadeem March 4, 2023 at 9:40 am #

      Truth is the chief social worker for children’s Ms Trowler has gone awol, in all the big issues has she even said anything?

    • Sandy beach March 5, 2023 at 10:00 am #

      Agree also noted that yet again it’s all the leaders of social work, I agree leadership has a place at the table, but leadership and government haven’t managed to resolve these issues for years, it could be argued that policy, funding cuts and unaddressed issues of culture have instead created a situation that has worsened this problem. And although l don’t agree with agency working as such. What other industry does government both shout out loud that the free market will solve all ill and yet that no we don’t want freedom of working practice? Perhaps had the government been less keen to remove some of the costs of working such as additional car insurance and wear and tear, and mileage being so low and unpaid hours people wouldn’t choose when faced with some of the bullying and pressures of work to choose options that allow gaps to recover inbetween contracts?

  2. David March 3, 2023 at 4:37 pm #

    If there were any leaders in social work this would have been done 12 years ago. Instead, what we got was axe men and women promoted into senior roles in Local Authorities who gleefully went about doing the Government’s austerity bidding. Anyone with a brain cell could see what the result would be, and here we are. Never mind eh

  3. Peter Rodgers March 3, 2023 at 4:50 pm #

    Funny how all these LAs and Cafcass are losing workers yet always banging on about what great places to work they are? ? maybe they should all listen to what staff tell them instead of pretending to and talking at then all the time. #wouldnotwishthejobonanyone

    • TiredSocialWorker March 3, 2023 at 11:32 pm #

      Spot on!

    • Jeff March 4, 2023 at 9:39 am #

      Nailed it!

    • Frustrated SW March 4, 2023 at 10:20 am #

      Spot on

    • Sue Gee March 5, 2023 at 3:58 pm #

      Absolutely. Glad I no l longer work for adult care. I worked in palliative care where dying people went from up to 24 hours care at home to 4 calls per day. I had the manager of CHC say to me ‘ I know he’s dying, but what’s his need’.

  4. Kelly Mahdavieh March 4, 2023 at 8:11 am #

    The recruitment and organisation culture is extremely out of touch with themselves. This is a pointless waste of money exercise. Working groups seem to exist purely for “ meetings and risk management ”. And I bet, there won’t be much action. There is far too much anxiety, discussion topics go round and round.

  5. Lin Newton March 4, 2023 at 9:20 am #

    I’m wondering if frontline social workers together with their Trades Union reps (not BASW) would do a better job of sorting this mess out than any of the above!

    • Sandy beach March 5, 2023 at 10:03 am #

      Yep leaders haven’t dented this issue, until people actually look at working conditions culture and what would actually work for the workforce feels a waste of time and money. Appreciate BASW are involved but they don’t represent everyone. This should be a worker led project or it will just be another watered down waste of time managers plan. Disappointing really

  6. Jo Linton March 4, 2023 at 9:39 am #

    Let’s be honest, SWE couldn’t organise a box of paperclips! ?

    I have zero faith in this nonsensical exercise.

  7. Andy March 4, 2023 at 2:07 pm #

    I worry that there’s a sense of desperation about the proposed formation of this working group. Its purpose is to address a wide range of issues which we all know have been highlighted repeatedly and in great depth over many, MANY years. A university education is an extremely expensive long term financial proposition and consequently, well-advised young people can make v careful decisions about what fields to study based on freely and easily available public information about those fields. Social work may not fare well in the eyes of such young people (especially young men who consistently don’t bother to acknowledge or even recognise social work as a career option) and this has obvious implications for potential future cohorts of social workers. The proposed working group needs to prioritise the development of a realistic public profile for social work that makes it more attractive to a wider demographic and this needs to happen at least five years ago.

  8. Phyllis March 5, 2023 at 11:28 am #

    Just another excuse for more meetings and no action by the pen-pushers…

  9. Sue Gee March 5, 2023 at 3:55 pm #

    Put the service users first? Dont make me laugh. I left after 20 years rather than help to discharge frail elderly from hospital to care homes to die from covid.

  10. Burni March 6, 2023 at 3:31 pm #

    I am speechless!

    How can people not understand that its not enough just to keep saying we will sort this big problem out and then some time later say yeah no honestly we are all getting together to sort this even bigger mess out.

    You cannot tell a wrecking ball to even the sturdiest of organisations/professions over 12 years and be surprised at the result.

    The lack of leadership at the top is dire and you can have all the meetings you want and come up with as many daft speak bubbles as you want.

    If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck…………………………. well you get it.

    I trained to be a SW over a decade ago and I cannot believe where its going but do try and stay positive but we all keep saying the same thing.

    YOU CANNOT TAKE MONEY OUT AND EXPECT INOVATION / PEOPLE WANTING TO SPEND LOTS OF MONEY COMINGINTO THE PROFESSION OR KEEP PEOPLE DANGLING OFF A PROVERBIAL CLIFF EDGE EVERY MONDAY MORNING AND EXPECT THINGS TO BE OK.

    I would take some honesty over your meetings and if you just said that you have another agenda and the complete destruction of the safety net of social care and health , I may not like it but at least you have been honest.

  11. Jacqueline Mahoney March 7, 2023 at 3:53 pm #

    It is interesting and concerning there is so little confidence in the workforce in general to make a real difference.

    It is unfortunate Department for Education and Chief SW for England (Children’s) not getting involved.

    The de-valuing and lack of respect for the professional is palpable SWE have not really done anything to support the profession, in times of crisis or criticism not a Chief SW is in sight.

    I wait with interest what comes out of it. Some of the organisations BASW / SWU I have much more faith in as can see the tangible work they are doing under difficult circumstances and the profession as a whole is so fractured.