Memorandum submitted by Surrey County
Council
CHILDREN'S
SOCIAL WORKER
PROFESSION—BOOSTING
THE SUPPLY
IN THE
SE REGION
We would like to contribute some key data and
information to your Select Committee Inquiry into the training
of children & families social workers. Earlier this year,
a large group of local authorities in the south east, hosted by
Surrey County Council, got together to try and seek collective
and significant solutions to the problem we all share of the critical
supply shortage of suitably qualified social workers to effectively
run our front line child protection services.
The cause of the problem is complex with long roots
but:
Employers of social workers do not have a strong
voice in organising the "supply" of the profession in
the UK which is now through Universities overseen by the General
Social Care Council (GSCC).
Leadership for the profession is diffused across
Skills for Care, Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC),
GSCC, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS)
and Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) with
no one agency really leading on sorting out the critical shortage.
Workforce planning at a national and regional
level has not delivered sufficient supply of competent qualified
workers to fulfil the role. Local authorities produce their own
local workforce plans but they have no control over the number
and type of training provided by Universities who can decide whether
to support social work training or not. This is extremely critical
for such a key statutory role. It is a problem which has largely
been grappled with and resolved in other key areas of the public
sector eg teaching, nursing, police, by a concerted national approach
to workforce supply, by training backed by funding and by a national
pay and standards approach. The deep problems with Children's
Social Workers have persisted for the last 5-10 years with little
concrete progress.
The job is increasingly specialised and requires
different training. The concept of generic training for social
workers, whether they work with adults or children and young people
is attractive to the profession but not for employers at the sharp
end of child protection service delivery. With the introduction
of care management and self directed support the role of the qualified
social worker in adult social care is very different from that
of a children's social worker dealing with child protection as
part of an integrated children's service. The quality of social
work training is not delivering in terms of preparing people for
the role once qualified.
Too long a lead time to produce a fully competent
children's social worker. The response from CWDC to date has been
to look at additional support for newly qualified social workers,
and additional development for senior practitioners. Universities
also offer post qualification specialist awards in children's
social work at additional cost. The social worker degree introduced
in 2003 which is three years long and includes 200 days of work
placement ought to be sufficiently practically-focused to produce
competent workers. Although it has succeeded in attracting a younger
cohort towards qualifying in the profession it has arguably exacerbated
the recruitment crisis as it now takes three years to become qualified
rather than two years under the previous Diploma.
We need to increase the use of support roles
to help maintain manageable workloads. The demand for qualified
workers has increased as legislation has expanded the scope of
roles that must be undertaken by a qualified social worker; however;
no consideration was made of the need to prepare for these changes
by increasing supply in advance.
A clear career path from support roles into qualified
professional is needed and a clear training package for family
support workers, for whom there is no definition of their role
or clear progression route to become qualified. Family support
workers are increasingly being relied on in areas of acute shortages
to undertake work without proper training in the absence of sufficiently
qualified social workers.
We now have an opportunity to take steps to increase
the number of people at the front line working in services to
children and families but we need key things to change to get
there. We are finding as local authorities that it is relatively
easy, for example, to recruit competent and committed people to
work as family support workers in social care, and we also receive
lots of enquiries from individuals wanting to get into this area
of work. This potential supply of labour has increased significantly
in the South East as the economy has gone into recession. Also,
the new school Diploma promises a potential supply of future younger
workers who would benefit from a para-professional route into
the profession. Working in a support role in children's social
care gives a much better understanding of the work and an individual's
aptitude for it than academic study and allows individuals to
see if they have sufficient emotional resilience, analytical skills
and ability to communicate with children, young people and their
families on a daily basis. We need your help and the help of your
Select Committee to bring about changes in social work training.
The costs and time commitment of undertaking
a social work degree are the major barriers to "career changers".
Increasingly local authorities are offering sponsorships and bursaries
to students; or seconding staff to undertake social work training.
However, this approach places a heavy burden on local authority
budgets with no guarantee the individual will stay in the profession
or with the authority in the longer term or that they will have
the proven aptitude to undertake the work when qualified. Authorities
in London and the South East may make this investment only to
have workers move to areas with cheaper living costs once qualified.
Moreover the quality of training for children's social work in
this country is variable and sometimes very poor according to
anecdotal feedback from employers and research summarized in the
recent Local Government Association report respect and protect:
— only one-third of newly qualified
children's social workers believe their degree courses prepared
them fully or largely for their job.
— only half of newly-qualified
practitioners said their training "completely or mostly"
covered child protection and only one-third said it "completely
or mostly" covered child development.
— just over half of social workers
said their course prepared them "just enough" for their
role, with the rest saying it had not prepared them at all to
practice.
The finding, from a survey of 500 newly qualified
practitioners, compares poorly with a 2005 survey of more than
2,000 newly-qualified teachers, in which 85% agreed that their
training course had prepared them to be an effective teacher.
One in five new social work graduates is currently
unemployed. Despite reports of recruitment problems in local authorities
across England, the unemployment rate for graduates was nearly
a fifth. Of the 6,000 newly-qualified social workers who registered
in 2007, 23% were described as unemployed. There may be a number
of reasons for this, such as students taking a break before searching
for a job, but the GSCC also refers to some anecdotal evidence
that some new graduates were having difficulty in obtaining work.
This is supported by anecdotal evidence from employers that the
quality of some newly qualified workers was so poor that despite
acute shortages they were unwilling to offer them a role.
The current system of social worker training
is very costly to administer with a complex system of arranging
work-based placements, practice teaching and work-based supervisors.
Local authority departments under pressure find it difficult to
support students properly and students face uncertainty around
getting placements and gaining sufficient experience in areas
they want to work.
The Laming report identified the shortcomings
in social worker training, calling for more inspection of social
work courses, specialisation in children's social work after the
first year and for all social workers to return to university
to do a post-qualification award.
However, as employers we do not believe this
goes far enough in terms of dealing with the urgent supply crisis.
As workloads rise, particularly for experienced social workers,
more social workers will leave the profession and the vicious
circle intensifies. Adding on post qualification training does
nothing to address the shortcomings on initial training and puts
further pressure on authorities to release frontline staff.
From Surrey County Council, here are our views
as to what we believe will help bring about the scale of change
we need:
A single national body—taking responsibility
for workforce planning for the profession, setting qualification
standards, marketing, promoting and funding social work training
and enabling employers of social workers to have a strong voice
on this body.
A proper reform of social worker training—recognising
the failure of the current social work training to supply sufficient
qualified competent children's and adults social workers.
A two year part-time work based foundation degree
for family support workers, undertaken whilst working in social
care on a day release basis, be developed in children's social
work. This should cover practical skills and key knowledge around
child development, child protection legislation, working with
parents and families. As they would already be working for an
employer in the field it would remove the need for complex work
placements. The employer would pay the salary but the training
provision should receive significant funding from the Government
through Universities/FE colleges.
Additional responsibilities following foundation
degree—once qualified, these workers would be able, with
supervision, to hold cases and work with families with children
in need, be the designated worker for Looked After Children, work
with foster parents and prospective adoptive parents, work in
residential settings and schools. They would need to register
with the GSCC to practice.
Intensive foundation degree level qualification
for those with complementary degrees eg psychology, sociology,
social policy, law, be developed or extensive relevant professional
experience eg youth workers, police officers, early years workers,
health professionals. For example six months intensive academic
study to cover the same syllabus as the foundation degree in a
shorter timescale. Once qualified they would need to work under
supervision as a family support worker or Social Work Para-Professional
for six months before being able to undertake children's social
worker duties and register with the GSCC.
Introduce a one year masters level qualification
in children's social work and child protection for either existing
social workers or those with a foundation degree and two years
post qualification experience. Social workers with this qualification
can lead on child protection proceedings, and manage teams of
children's social workers. The one-year training would be focused
on child protection legislation, management and supervision skills,
data analysis and risk management. Again this training needs to
be fully funded by government through Universities with financial
support for local authorities to release workers to participate.
Over time more and more children's social workers should become
qualified to masters level.
More systematic selection for degree courses—
in terms of identifying individuals with the emotional resilience,
analytical skills and ability to work with children and young
people effectively. Employers should recruit jointly with Universities/FE
colleges to all courses, with more use of competency testing rather
than interviews/academic credentials.
We also believe change is needed around pay:
A national pay structure be developed for:
Family support workers undertaking the foundation
degree.
Qualified social workers holding at least the
foundation degree.
Senior social workers holding at least the masters
level qualification.
Team managers and Senior practitioners/specialists.
National pay spine/pay ranges be developed to
avoid the current situation of employees "salary hopping"
and increasing reliance on agency staffing, developing pay spines
and ranges with weightings to reflect the additional living costs
of working in London and the South East. These might be formally
or informally agreed between employers.
If we can provide any further assistance, please
do not hesitate to contact me, as we are keen to see a solution
to this long standing problem.
Andrew Roberts
Strategic Director for Children, Schools & Families
May 2009
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