Social workers are part of a local government workforce dogged by poor pay, high vacancy levels and lack of investment in training. Will the social work task force change anything?
With the interim report of the Social Work Task Force out today, it’s time to reflect on the issues facing Unison’s social work members – and indeed social workers everywhere. It’s hard not to conclude that, since the Baby Peter tragedy, things for them have only got worse.
Yesterday the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families called for ‘radical reform’ of social work training, saying that ‘new recruits to the profession are routinely placed in the most challenging circumstances, with insufficient preparation, experience or support’.
It also said that councils and universities together must provide ‘high quality college courses, relevant practical experience and acceptable levels of support from good managers to social workers on the front line’. It called into question local authorities’ heavy dependence on agency workers and the ‘almost non-existent’ quality control of the agencies which provide them. ‘Yeah’ to all of that! So what does the Social Work Task Force have to add?
Let’s look first at some hard facts and figures. Following the death of Baby Peter, Unison submitted a Freedom of Information request to all UK social services authorities seeking information on vacancy rates, use of agency staff and incidents of harassment and bullying. At December 31 2008, the average vacancy rate in London was 20%, rising to 57%. The lowest rates were in the Northeast – even there, it was 7% overall. Not surprising then that the UK average for use of agency staff was 6%, reaching 14% in London and a terrifying 42% in one borough.
Incidents of assault, threats of violence, harassment and verbal abuse of social workers are commonplace. Our FoI survey reinforced the findings of another 2008 Unison survey, covering 10,000 of our members in local authorities. This showed that, it the previous two years, 65% of social workers had experienced verbal abuse, 31% bullying, 26% physical threats and 9% actual violence. How shocking then that almost half of councils in our FoI survey could provide no data about recorded incidents and many others could not identify social workers in their statistics. In 2001, another task force called for a raft of measures to ensure social workers’ safety. Members of that task force recently remarked that the government did little to implement their recommendations.
So what do social workers want? Of 400 Unison social workers questioned in depth this year, fewer than half thought that systems, procedures and inter-agency working had improved since the Victoria Climbié tragedy in 2003. Almost half (49%) thought that social work services for children had fewer resources now and 71% said that average caseloads had increased. Over half said it was more likely for unqualified or newly qualified social workers to be dealing with child protection now than in 2003.
Unison’s ten-point plan for protecting vulnerable children is based on that research and calls for a range of measures to reward, support and protect social workers and improve services to children. We want more social workers and support staff – including reinstatement of home care workers within families - and increased resources. We want a cull of unnecessary bureaucracy, an overhaul of the IT system within the Integrated Children's System, better support through quality supervision and space for more reflective practice. Measures to rebuild morale, confidence and status of social workers also feature strongly in our plan.
Better pay is not in it, because it goes without saying that £25,000 – £35,000 is not adequate reward for those with such heavy responsibilities. Few mention that social workers are part of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services, which recently threatened to withdraw a 0.5% pay offer completely unless it was accepted within an imposed deadline. Not many recognise that the average per capita expenditure on training in local government is £220 a year and that 90% of that goes to managers, so there’s little there for social workers and post-qualification learning. Not many know that Birmingham City and Somerset County Councils this week threatened to pull out of national bargaining if an improved pay offer of 1%–1.25% is accepted.
The Local Government Association regularly and rightly calls for a better deal for social workers. It needs to wake up and smell the coffee. The remedy is in its own hands. It can choose between investing in its workforce – including social workers and other care staff – or it can continue to pursue electoral popularity and cuts in council tax through redundancies and staffing reductions, bargain basement pay and conditions and widespread use of agency workers. The choice is theirs. Let’s hope the task force has got that message.
