Council looks to tackle staff shortage in children services

The shortage of adults and children’s social workers is acknowledged as a UK-wide issue as the burden of extra work and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on staff.

Across the UK social worker vacancy rates are at 54 per cent.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, a report on how to deal with the issue in the short term and finding a long-term solution was discussed.

The situation was explained by Karen Sharp of the Children’s Services department.

Ms Sharp said: “There is a risk that the service is unable to meet its statutory and regulatory requirements and there’s increased likelihood that the risk management of children will be compromised as practitioners become overwhelmed with their caseloads.

“I’m sure everyone will be very aware we’ve had severe recruitment challenges in our front-line teams and it’s a UK wide national issued that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic.”

She added that some authorities had responded to the problems by offering higher wages.

Ms Sharp explained that the council had an “over reliance on agency staff” and the council’s own training programme while “helping” created its own challenges as newly qualified social workers don’t have the learning or experience to deal with “complex high-risk cases.”

Ms Sharp also warned of burnout in workers, explaining they worked long into the evening and being part of “busy” on call rotas meant they don’t getting the necessary “rest from work.”

To cope with the crisis Ms Sharp said that staff were being moved to the “priority areas,” and that temporary “care and wellbeing team” was now in place to pick up the less complex cases and family referrals.

This allows more experienced social workers to concentrate on the more complex cases.

Ms Sharp said, “In terms of incentives we are proposing that newly qualified staff move to the top of grade 10.”

Advancing newly qualified staff up to the top of the grade would see the total cost for these workers increase by £10,000 each.

Another change would be to allow staff to work a nine-day fortnight.

Ms Sharp said: “The long-term solution it’s to strengthen our grow our own social work project and analyse why there is such a sustained increase in demand, how best to meet that in the future and how we need to adapt.”

Director of social services, Alison Bulman, confirmed that the changes are affordable within the current “cash envelope.”

Children’s social services portfolio holder Cllr Rachel Powell added: “This is a positive way forward, maintaining statutory responsibilities is paramount I’m not willing to jeopardise that.”

The report was unanimously approved by the cabinet.