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As councils increasingly come to rely on foreign workers to solve the recruitment crisis in social care, Anabel Unity Sale finds out how social workers who have moved to the UK view working conditions and cultures here.

Nelson Shabare is one of 12 qualified social workers from Zimbabwe recently recruited by Rotherham Council to its children and families service. He started three months ago on a five-year contract, and earns about £16,000 annually. Rotherham gave him a £600 relocation fee and he can claim £450 back for furniture costs. He lives alone in a council flat with a subsidised rent of £18 per week, which will rise to £32 a week in three months.

He laughs when he admits what he thought England was like. "I expected to see the kind of life you see in the movies, with everyone living in big houses."

More and more councils are looking abroad in an attempt to solve their recruitment crises. Anthony Douglas, executive director of community services for Havering, argues that the social care sector will become increasingly reliant on a multinational workforce if it is to meet the needs of ageing clients. His report Is Anybody Out There?¹ which was commissioned by Community Care says that the sooner the sector accepts this, the better for employers, practitioners and clients alike.

So, what is life like for foreign social workers recruited by UK local authorities? Why do they choose to leave, and what do they expect from the move?

One of the differences Shabare has found so far is the availability of funds for family services: "Resources are greater and available here. I would have to wait for a year for funding in Zimbabwe."

Mariechen Van Rooyen, a social worker in Kent Council's children and families' team, looked forward to working with fewer clients than in her native South Africa. "I knew the caseload wasn't as large and I could do more quality work, which is what social workers yearn for," she says. Van Rooyen joined Kent a year ago on a permanent contract and has a five-year work permit. She earns about £25,000 a year, compared with the £6,000 she earned in South Africa where she had 30 years' experience. She received a £1,500 relocation fee for her and her husband to move here.

The big surprise for Wynand McDonald, who joined Hillingdon Council last October, is the sector's lack of standing compared with South Africa. "I expected that the profession would have a greater status here, but it has an image problem," he says.

He is on a permanent contract with a three-year work permit and has just been promoted to senior social worker in Hillingdon's children and families team. He earns around £27,000 a year and was not paid a relocation fee. McDonald says he is disappointed he cannot afford to pay for additional training, such as a PhD, on his salary because it is so expensive.

Shabare, Van Rooyen and McDonald all have university degrees in social work. This level of qualification makes them and their colleagues particularly attractive to UK employers, where around 80 per cent of the social care workforce is unqualified. All three felt that leaving their homeland was the best way to advance their career.

Responsibility for verifying the qualifications of overseas social workers in the UK was transferred from CCETSW to England's General Social Care Council last October. It also conducts verification on behalf of the social care councils in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In 1999-2000 it issued 482 letters of verification to foreign social workers confirming their qualifications. In 2000-1 this rose to 801 and in 2001-2 to 1,175. GSCC registrar Andrew Skidmore says this "massive rise" reflects the UK's growing shortage of qualified social workers. In April 2003, the GSCC will have the additional task of deciding whether overseas social workers can be admitted to the body's professional register.

Inductions are the most effective way of informing overseas social workers about how social care operates in the UK. Rotherham Council's acting head of children and families services, Pam Allen, says it ran an eight-week programme covering legislation how the authority structure works and immigration issues. They also produced an information pack on living in the town.

Social workers relocating here often need support in settling in, and anecdotal evidence suggests that some have been left to fend for themselves. Van Rooyen is relieved that this was not the case for her. "As a South African you are used to being labelled, but no one has been judgemental towards me."

McDonald says he was in the fortunate position of having a brother already living here and did not need additional help. The two now rent a private flat together in Windsor.

Allen says social workers can benefit from being supported by a union, and links have already been established between the Zimbabwean social workers and Rotherham's Unison branch.

Recruiting staff from other countries is not without hiccups, says Hillingdon Council's children and families service manager Chris Hogan. She says two of the seven qualified South African social workers appointed between September 2001 and February 2002 by the authority have left "by mutual agreement".

Foreign social workers often have problems with cultural differences between the UK and their homeland. Shabare says: "Some of the things families think of as 'need' I may not see as need because of my experiences with families in Zimbabwe." Van Rooyen agrees: "I have to remember that when a family says they are in need, they are, and not compare it to a South African family."

Recruiting from overseas can leave councils open to accusations that they are not looking for long-term solutions to shortages, and are creating problems in the country they hire from. Owen Davies, Unison's national officer for social services, says: "Recruitment activity in foreign countries costs very substantial sums of money but does not necessarily lead to staff who are willing to become a permanent asset to the UK workforce." A longer-term solution, he adds, would be for councils to invest in more training schemes.

While there is no official guidance on overseas recruitment of social workers, a Department of Health spokesperson says it is currently considering whether or not to issue some. She says employers should follow the DoH's Guidance on International Nursing Recruitment, which recommends that NHS employers "do not actively recruit from developing countries that are experiencing nursing shortages of their own".²

Hogan is reluctant for "further bureaucracy" to surround recruitment and says councils' existing policies could be amended to include overseas social workers.

So is recruiting social workers from overseas really the solution to staff shortages? Not for Kent - the council has stopped foreign recruitment because of budget pressures, says Peter Gilroy, strategic director of social services.

Instead the council designed a staff care package that includes a "ready for practice" scheme to pay local people to train as social workers. Launched in 2000, it took on 28 applicants in its first two years. There have been more than 1,000 applicants for the 27 places on the third round starting in September. With a vacancy rate of 4 per cent, Gilroy believes this is the way forward.

Hogan admits that she found recruiting from overseas a moral dilemma. But when she discussed it with South African social workers she discovered it was not perceived as a problem. "We would consider recruiting from abroad again and it has been an enriching experience," she says.

¹Anthony Douglas, Is Anybody Out There?, June 2002, from www.community-care.co.uk  

²Department of Health, Guidance on International Nursing Recruitment, DoH, 1999, from www.doh.gov.uk