There is one thing that unites social workers across England, Scotland and Wales – there’s simply not enough of them, writes Derren Hayes.
This fact was re-emphasised earlier this week when the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru published its Welsh workforce report. It showed vacancy rates of 15 per cent across the 22 authorities – with this rising to 18 per cent in children’s services - and retention rates also running at 15 per cent.
The story is much the same in England where the vacancy rate is around 11 per cent (2003 figures – statistics for 2004 are due to be published later this month and are expected to show little improvement), and Scotland where one in 10 posts remain unfilled.
It has created a situation where authorities try to outbid each other for a finite pool of social workers, a practice the ADSS report, calls “unworkable and difficult to justify”. It adds this in turn is creating winners and losers which is undermining the quality of services in some councils.
Golden hellos
Dominic MacAskill, regional organiser of Unison Cymru and a member
of the ADSS working group that compiled the report, says some
councils have decided to move away from pay scales set in the 1980s
by offering supplements and ‘golden hellos’ to certain
groups of social workers.
“It has created a lot of leapfrogging. Some authorities have taken a puritanical view and refused to budge from the pay scale only for a neighbouring authority to chump them,” he explains.
Alan McKeown, social work officer at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, says a similar, “unsustainable” situation has developed in Scotland. Cosla has set up a group to look at the problem and whether a regional or national approach to recruitment and retention is needed.
“The objective will be to create sustainable pay scales and consistency across Scotland while still allowing [local] differences to apply,” explains McKeown. “We want to break down what the key building blocks to the job are and that the prices paid for this are consistent.”
Certainly, the Welsh report believes councils must work more collaboratively over recruitment, pay, benefits, training and staff development. “We must create a culture whereby there is a feeling that staff are working for Wales social services, which reinforces the principle of social care being one sector with one workforce,” it states.
National pay scales
It admits setting national or regional pay scales will be a
difficult task. If further proof of this was needed, John Drew,
secretary of the Greater London ADSS can provide it.
“It is more difficult than it appears because you are not necessarily talking about authorities that have the same set of circumstances,” says Drew. “In that scenario it is very difficult to develop a London, regional or national solution.
“GLADSS looked at it a few times in the last four years and every time we’ve got close someone has said ‘we can’t sign up to this, we’ve got to look after the interests of our authority first’. It has always held us back.
“I don’t know whether it is a lesson for Wales, but what you would think is that if there was anywhere you could have this kind of solution it is in London where you have a mobile and compressed workforce,” Drew explains.
However, he says the approach most likely to work is for “clusters” of authorities to collaborate on a sub-regional basis – this has happened in London where a consortium of authorities in the west of the capital work together on employing temporary staff.
Collaboration
| Johnston is sceptical about collaboration |
But David Behan, chief inspector of the Commission for Social Care Inspection is adamant such an approach is crucial to improving services.
“Shortage of workers affects a council’s ability to deliver services and there is a correlation between performance and having good human resource systems in place. Inspections show those performing well are attending to issues around training and development of staff,” he adds.
Social workers will always move around between authorities, Behan says, but those that think they can recruit by just offering more money are short sighted, he adds.
“Social workers are more discerning than just chasing a few extra pounds. They want political and managerial support and training. If we have a notion of public service, people will work for a number of different organisations. They may work for you, join another authority and then come back. That is healthy for professionals’ development,” says Behan.
Money
One authority that offered social workers more money to address
vacancy rates was Glasgow. It proved highly successful when
introduced in late 2003, cutting vacancies to virtually zero.
However, Glasgow director David Comley says money wasn’t the biggest factor – it reorganised its workforce so that senior social workers took on field work again, social care workers posts were introduced to take on more of the paperwork and team leader roles created.
Comley believes the reorganisation didn’t lead to neighbouring authorities suffering.
“We haven’t pinched large numbers of social workers although we seem to have picked up a lot of newly qualified ones attracted by the new model.
“Social workers will continue to be a scarce resource but we think we will be a net exporter to other parts of Scotland as future social workers will come from social care workers training up and team leaders will come from our existing qualified social workers,” Comley adds.
This factor – increasing the pool of social workers - could prove to be the best chance of tackling the shortage across the whole of the UK, especially if efforts to create collaborative approaches are in vain. Kathryn Kelly, recruitment senior advisor at the Employers Organisation, thinks so.
“We need to move away from the competitive market between authorities and in the medium to long term increase the pool of people,” she adds.
‘Social Work in Wales: A Profession to Value’ from www.allwalesunit.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1704
