New staff roles created in Glasgow to cope with caseload

Frontline social workers will take on greater responsibility for
making decisions under plans by Glasgow Council to restructure its
social services department, writes Sally
Gillen.

The radical reforms, which are designed to address the 40 per
cent vacancy rates affecting some parts of the department, will see
the management post of senior social worker scrapped.

It will be replaced by a practice team leader post, which will
include responsibility for the toughest cases and the management of
a small team.

Current senior social workers will either move back to a social
worker post, but on the same salary of £27,800 or become a
practice team leader following an assessment of their management
skills.

Practice team leaders will be paid a starting salary of
£30,000, which will rise to £33,750 with experience.

Director of social work services David Comley said the
proposals, which will go to committee later this month, would
create a “much leaner, less bureaucratic
structure”.

He added: “Returning experienced social workers to
casework will enable a significant 30 per cent increase in caseload
capacity for teams straight away. One irony of traditional social
work structures is that our most experienced frontline staff are
denied the opportunity to handle the most challenging
cases.”

Other changes include the replacement of the home maker and
social work assistant posts with a social care worker post, with a
£3,000 phased in pay increase, taking the top salary from
£19,000 to £22,000.

The staff review follows a staff attitudes survey carried out by
MORI, which showed that 65 per cent of respondents felt some of the
decisions they had to refer upwards they could make themselves.

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