Difficulty hiring social workers blamed for council's near-£3m overspend on agency staff

The authority currently employs around 30 agency staff in children’s services, used to plug gaps in the council’s provision, which has led to “huge pressure” in the department’s budget.

Plans to recruit more permanent staff and reduce Shropshire Council’s reliance on agency workers will be put before cabinet to help address failings in some areas of children’s services.

Earlier this month, Ofsted published the findings of an inspection report which found there were “serious and widespread systemic failings” with the authority’s case management arrangements, with the inspectors noting an “over-reliance” on agency workers due to the challenges of recruiting and retaining permanent staff.

Shropshire Council’s children’s services are rated ‘Good’ overall.

A draft improvement plan has now been submitted to Ofsted and the authority will be required to show progress by June.

Sonya Miller, assistant director for Children’s Social Care, told a meeting of the council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee: “The current case-load held by agency social workers in case management is 316 children, and that’s the extent of the challenge that we face at this time.

“That [cost of agency workers] varies from agency to agency but it’s anywhere between 20-30 per cent on top of what we would pay a full salaried cost per member of staff. The impact on my budget this year is just short of a £3million overspend on agency staff.”

Shropshire Council will now consider a range of proposals designed to rectify those failings, which are expected to focus on recruiting more permanent staff and providing extra support to busy social workers to bring case-loads down.

The improvement plan set to be brought before cabinet is being finalised by a specially created ‘Childrens Improvement Board’, but the authority will investigate the use of extra support staff to help reduce administrative case loads in the department, and local hub offices for social care staff to reduce their travelling time between visits.

The council is currently recruiting for new permanent social workers and management roles, which it says has seen strong interest from potential candidates.

Tanya Miles, executive director of people, added: “We know that outcomes for children are better if they’ve got a consistent social worker in their lives. We know that there is huge pressure on our children’s social care budget this year because of the overspend so we’ve got to do everything we possibly can, and I believe we are doing so, in terms of what we can do to recruit to those social work posts.

“We’ve got a really strong social work degree apprenticeship programme in Shropshire.

“It’s a four-year programme in terms of us ‘growing our own’ apprenticeships because we know people will stay in Shropshire when we’ve supported them through their training.

“The next step for me is around making sure that overall package for our social workers in Shropshire is understood by social workers outside who are not currently working for us.”