8th May 2009
By Alex Klaushofer
The government has announced a £58m drive to stem the crisis in the recruitment and retention of social workers in the wake of the Baby P case.
The measures form part of the government’s detailed response to Lord Laming’s March report on child protection. They include the creation of 200 sponsored university places for graduates to do social work conversion courses and a campaign aimed at persuading 500 former social workers to return to the profession by the autumn.
A new cross-governmental body will be responsible for improving frontline services and members of the public are to sit on child protection boards. Sir Roger Singleton, former head of the charity Barnardo’s, has been appointed to the new role of chief adviser on children’s safety.
The government’s response was published as a Local Government Association survey revealed that three out of five councils in England are struggling to recruit social workers in child protection. Two out of five say they are having difficulty in retaining staff. Over half – 57% – said it had become even harder to recruit over the past six months, with 38% reporting problems in staff retention over the same period.
Councils and social workers’ representatives have welcomed the government’s recruitment drive. LGA chair Margaret Eaton said: ‘A drive to train and recruit new and recently departed social workers is a good first step in tackling the difficulties councils face protecting vulnerable children.
‘We need to ensure that social workers are not burdened by red tape and targets. Individual social workers need to have more manageable workloads.’
Unison’s national officer for social workers, Helga Pile, warned against the ‘revolving door effect’. ‘Getting more people into the job is absolutely essential, but keeping them there is the real tough challenge,’ she said. ‘We must ensure that the workload is made bearable by cutting caseloads, culling paperwork and tackling the number of threats and assaults on social workers.’
Last week one of the men responsible for the death of Baby P was found guilty of raping a two-year-old girl, who was also on the London Borough of Haringey’s child protection list.
A Haringey spokesman said the council is to launch a campaign to fill its vacancies in child social care in June.
