News

Is a £2m campaign enough to revitalise the social care workforce?

A £2m campaign to improve the image of social care is designed to boost morale and recruitment. But other public sector workers have had rather more, reports Clare Jerrom.

Social workers will have just cause for celebration this week as the government takes steps to address the sector's severe staff shortages, with the launch of the first ever national social work recruitment campaign.

Funding to the tune of £2m will be injected into the three-year initiative, due to be launched by health secretary Alan Milburn at this week's National Social Services Conference in Harrogate.

The campaign hopes to dispel the negative image associated with the profession, to educate the public about social work, and to provide information on career options. It will receive national press and radio coverage, although these efforts will be largely concentrated in areas such as the South East where recruitment and retention problems are more acute (News, page 3, 23 August).

Information booklets explaining social work and social care work, and how to embark on a career in either, will accompany the campaign. Public relations work will also be undertaken to raise the profile of social work generally, and a response line and website will be established to deal with enquiries.

The drive follows last year's revelation by the Local Government Association that 63 per cent of local authorities were experiencing problems recruiting social workers.

According to Department of Health figures, some London boroughs were reporting a vacancy rate for qualified social workers of 40 per cent last year.

A further study of social services departments in England this year by the Association of Directors of Social Services found an overall vacancy rate for field social worker posts in child protection of 14.7 per cent - indicating 2,000 empty posts (News, page 8, 27 September).

Chief inspector of social services Denise Platt blames the crisis on the negative image surrounding social work.

"The image is generated predominantly by negative media coverage, which usually concentrates on a small number of controversial cases, with very little media attention being directed to the many successes or the highly important nature of the job," Platt said in August in a letter to directors of social services outlining the campaign.

The timing of this campaign coincides with two such high-profile "controversial cases": the inquiry into the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie and the trial of the stepmother of six-year-old Lauren Wright who died in May 2000.

Victoria was abused by her great- aunt Marie-Therese Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning, eventually dying from neglect and malnutrition in February 2000. Both received life sentences for murder. But individual social workers have already been fingered by the media for failing to prevent such a tragedy.

In a separate case this month, Tracey Wright was found guilty of causing the death of her step-daughter, Lauren. Craig Wright, Lauren's father, was found guilty of manslaughter.

In the ensuing media interviews, Norfolk social services director David Wright admitted there had been "crucial mistakes" which, if avoided, could have saved Lauren's life (News, page 7, 4 October).

It is against this backdrop of negative publicity that the Department of Health's recruitment campaign will be launched. The question is, then, whether its message will be strong enough to counteract the images created by the rare but emotive cases of the Victorias and Laurens of this world?

One thing which may hinder the campaign's success is its level of investment. The £2m may sound a lot, but looks pitifully small when compared with the amounts spent on recruitment campaigns for other public sector workers.

Teaching and the police, for example, both received high-profile television campaigns earlier this year. Bearing in mind a 30-second slot transmitted in the Carlton regions of London in peak-time evening hours costs between £12,000 and £49,000, it is safe to say no expense was spared on advertising in these campaigns.

In March this year, £35m was invested in a teacher recruitment and retention fund for 2001-2, with a promise of similar amounts in 2002-3.

This funding was designed to develop solutions such as housing subsidies, child care support, travel costs and additional salary payments.

Pay rises of £3,000 were offered to experienced teachers, the existing £4,000 "golden hello" scheme for subjects with particular shortages was extended, and qualified ex-teachers were given welcome-back bonuses.

Similarly, nurses were tempted back to the NHS with promises of £1,000 bonuses. A total of £30m was invested in improving child care facilities for NHS staff, and £100,000 was spent on a recruitment campaign for nurses in the South East alone.

But there are significant differences between the social work recruitment campaign and these other campaigns. Rather than including promises of cash incentives, this time the emphasis is solely on lifting the profession's negative image and educating the public.

To some, such stark differences suggest the government is not taking social work as seriously as other public sector professions. Similar concerns were raised over the starter home initiative launched this summer to help public sector staff working in high-cost areas to get onto the first rung of the property ladder. While loans were made available to 3,992 nurses, 2,817 teachers and 892 police officers, social workers were left to fight with fire fighters and transport workers over the remaining 311 loans available (News, page 6, 13 September).

According to vice-chairperson of the ADSS human resources and training committee, Hilary Simon, the national recruitment campaign is a good start but must be sustained. She says recruitment issues in social work are complex, warning that "no one button is going to provide the magic answer".

"What we know is the image has been severely shaken by a succession of tragic incidents and national inquiries," she adds. "What has not been communicated is all the good work social workers do."

Some local authorities are turning to their own solutions, which suggests the national campaign has not instilled confidence all round.

Ian Wilson, director of social services at the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, believes "it is unlikely that such initiatives, though welcome, can be relied upon to solve the problem".

He says his council is tackling recruitment locally through providing free training to people from the Bangladeshi, Somali and African-Caribbean communities who would otherwise have been unqualified.

Since 1997, the council has had a secondment programme to Diploma in Social Work courses in place for 10 people from these groups. It also funds four people per year on a graduate entry trainee scheme for social work.

Despite the £610,000 annual cost of the secondment scheme, Wilson sees it as a good investment and part of a long-term recruitment strategy: "It is our belief that black and Asian people from the local community are the long-term solution to the professional staffing of our directorate; people committed to living and working in this community, and serving the needs of our service-users in all their diversity."

A second east London borough is also turning to local solutions. From next April, Newham Council will be the first local authority to offer performance-related pay to social workers in a bid to tackle recruitment and retention (News, page 6, 6 September). The 300 social workers who meet performance targets are to receive bonuses of £1,500.

In addition, the council is planning to offer "market supplements" of £3,000 to staff in its children's assessment and children-in-need teams who stay with the council for two years. From October, pay scales will also be increased by two increments.

The government's national social work recruitment campaign follows the LGA and Community Care joint awareness campaign "You Can Make a Difference", launched in March.

At the time, the then social care minister John Hutton pledged his support, saying the move was a positive beginning but would take ongoing commitment to turn things around (News, page 3, 22 March).

Such ongoing commitment is essential if we are ever to slash vacancy rates, challenge the negative perception of the profession, boost morale, and place social work on a level playing field with teaching, policing and nursing.

Whether this recruitment campaign and its £2m budget will be enough to do that remains to be seen. But the first step at least has been taken: social work as a profession is at last in the spotlight, and the government has acknowledged publicly that it is an area that needs resources, a make-over, and a lot of hard work.

As Hilary Simon says: "We have seen a turnaround in teachers. People recognise the teaching profession as one that should be respected and nurtured. Their campaign has worked - let's just hope ours has the same outcome."