Social work has long relied on the goodwill and
dedication of its practitioners but our exclusive survey finds that
they are less than happy with their conditions, writes Andrew
Mickel
It's no secret that social workers don't have the best working
conditions, but seeing the extent of the problem in the Community
Care/Unison pay and conditions survey still has the power to
surprise. Only 22% of those surveyed consider their promotion
prospects to be excellent or good with their employers.
That rate of satisfaction rises to 26% for the state of their
caseloads, 44% for the quality of supervision and 45% for decision
support. Factor in typically long careers in social care, long
working hours and low pay rates - the average respondent has worked
18 years in social care yet earns only £32,110, and has a 41-hour
working week despite being paid for just 35 - and it is little
Nearly three-quarters of the respondents are either very or fairly
satisfied, a number that rises to 82% in the voluntary sector, even
though they earn less and work longer hours than the average.
Nearly 1,400 people were surveyed, drawn from all levels of
children's and adults' social work in the state and voluntary
sectors. The study does, of course, overlook one major group: those
who were so unsatisfied by the job that they left social work
altogether. So why is it that so many social workers are so unhappy
with the conditions of work, yet satisfied with their jobs. Are
they simply gluttons for punishment?
Not so, says Hilton Dawson, chief executive of the
British Association of Social
Workers. He is part way through a listening tour of the country
to hear what social workers think of the profession, and he
disagrees with the idea that so many people are satisfied. "I think
sometimes there's a bloody-minded determination to do social work
in the face of adversity," he says. "I don't recognise
satisfaction. They are dissatisfied, demoralised and feel
undervalued and unrecognised. I suspect that the answers reflect
people's dedication rather than satisfaction."
As the survey results show, there is plenty for social workers
to be dissatisfied with.
PROMOTION PROSPECTS
On the day that he met social workers from Cornwall, Dawson
said: "People are crying out for a career structure to allow
specialist roles or give them advanced professional tasks which
keep them close to practice. But some areas, like where I've been
today, are reducing their numbers of specialist practitioners to
focus on making sure that basic statutory work is done."
There is some variation of jobs. In the survey, just 25% of
respondents had the title social worker; 27% were managers or
leaders, with smaller percentages holding more than a dozen other
titles, including senior practitioners and social workers, head of
departments, area or district managers, directors, commissioners
and key workers.
Despite these wild variations in titles, it is true that there
is less of a career ladder for social workers compared with other
sectors. Helga Pile, national officer for Unison, points out that
it is most striking for adults social workers who work alongside
colleagues in health, who have a career and pay scale to climb. She
also concurs with Dawson's assessment. "More senior roles are
disappearing, sometimes under the guise of making things flatter
but then, when you look, it's just the more senior practitioner
roles that are being taken out," she says.
The situation could improve with the advanced practitioner
status, announced in
the government's response to the Laming report, allowing
experienced social workers to remain on the frontline rather than
moving into management.
Consultant practitioner roles are also being developed in
adults' services by some local authorities. With the average
respondent age for the survey 48 and the majority spending most of
their careers in the sector, there is no shortage of long-serving
social workers who could fill those new jobs.
"We've a degree of career grading but they don't take you into
the £40k salary bracket that people think should be their
ambition," says John Nawrockyi, of the Association of Directors of
Adult Services workforce development policy network. "The
[consultant role] works well. The jobs have been popular and
oversubscribed."
WORKING CONDITIONS
Working conditions is a broad catch-all term, and Nawrockyi
emphasises that there is no single answer to complex questions.
"I'd like to think that if there were issues in a given council
they would come out in staff surveys," he says. "We have them in
Greenwich [where Nawrockyi is director of adults' services] and it
can flag up big issues for us. We can work with the trade unions as
well."
But that is far from the general picture. Hot-desking has become
a hot topic for staff who want their own workspace; equipment is
scarce in some places; and substandard offices are now the
norm.
"I've now done my 29th meeting with social workers across the
country - that must be about 1,000 social workers," Dawson says.
"People report appalling working conditions. They don't have some
of the basic machinery. Photocopiers don't work; social workers in
Cornwall have just had their essential car allowance taken away
from them; and the fad for hot-desking breaks up teams and
undermines effective team working.
"Plus they have little clerical support. Social workers have
become typists. As well as doing, say, highly detailed work on
children in care, they are booking taxis, typing up the notes for
meetings and sending them out."
VOLUNTARY SECTOR
Such sub-standard working conditions do not have to be the norm,
even in cash-straitened times. Respondents from the voluntary
sector, which appears to have been hit harder and faster by the
recession than the statutory sector, register higher levels of
satisfaction on all measures.
Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council of
Voluntary Organisations and a former social worker himself, says
less scrutiny frees staff in the voluntary sector to do their work.
"The sector has a degree of independence and is probably less
bureaucratic than the statutory sector," he says.
"The structures are flatter and there's more professional
discretion which is key for professional engagement. It's also
easier for staff to feel that they have more control over the
direction of their agency. People feel like they have more control
over their decisions."
However, the situation is far from perfect in the voluntary
sector, as councils have cut contracts and job losses have
followed. One-fifth of respondents in the voluntary sector lost
their previous job through redundancy, compared with 6% of all
respondents.
"Most services are provided to local authorities or primary care
trusts on contract," says Etherington. "There's more aggressive
competition with the private sector and some suggestion that local
authorities are insourcing contracts again.
"I think the voluntary sector will hold up as well as it can but
will find it tough."
TRAINING
The recession is likely to have an impact on social workers'
jobs, but only in certain areas. Consider the factors that job
hunters think are important: the location of the job (96% consider
it very or fairly important when looking for a new job) and the job
description (94%) are unlikely to be severely affected by the
recession. But salaries (97%) and the quality of supervision (92%)
could well both suffer as councils have less cash to spend.
Pile says there are already signs that training budgets have
been scaled back, with some cases of social workers being placed on
waiting lists to do post-qualifying training.
But the quality of supervision should, for the newest members of
the workforce through the newly qualified social worker programme
pilots, be strong. However, Dawson says that isn't the case. "I've
heard from newly qualified social workers who were supposed to be
part of the pilot who haven't had their workloads reduced and have
been given tasks beyond their training to do," he says. "Most don't
have regular enough supervision and have to pack it into their
caseloads."
CHANGING JOBS
Given all these problems, why aren't more people leaving the
profession? In lieu of decent promotion prospects or higher
salaries, it would appear that many people decide to change jobs to
keep things fresh.
Even though the average respondent has spent 18 years in the
social care sector, they have spent typically five years in their
current role. Just under half have spent less than three years in
their jobs, and generally it takes less than a month to find a new
one.
Those statistics are even more exaggerated in the voluntary
sector, where many people work in smaller projects and promotion
prospects are even fewer. Half of the voluntary sector respondents
foresee their next job being with a new employer, compared with 35%
overall.
Finding ways to work with difficult situations is a social
worker's job, and that attitude is being passed on to the next
generation of practitioners. Despite Dawson claiming that some
newly-qualified social workers are "burning out" in just 18 months
on the job, the survey shows that for those earning under £25,000,
only 8% are looking for their next job outside of the social care
sector.
The results show poor working conditions, and the experts show
little faith in them improving. But this is hardly a new situation
for the social care workforce.
"We often get the response that people do well despite
employers," Pile says. "There is the impression that people do
derive satisfaction from their commitment to people's lives.
"There's a sense of vocation that people carry with them more in
a personal way. People can be satisfied with their personal
achievements."
VIEW FROM THE FRONTLINE: "I've been back less than a
year. Already I want out"
Lisa* is exactly the sort of social worker that the government
wants to lure back to the profession. Having qualified in 1984 she
then worked in children's teams, but then left social work and
spent seven years as a school counsellor.
She returned to children's social work as a locum in a London
borough last October - weeks before the Baby P story became a
tabloid monster - but already now has an eye on escaping the poor
conditions she has returned to.
Excessive caseloads
"I think caseloads are too high, and it's not clear how they are
counted as children or families," she says. "I think I've got about
20 families and it's too much.
"It's my personal greatest dissatisfaction that I can't do
anything well because I'm rushed around and making mistakes in
organising things. Plus there's a lot admin in this particular
post."
Lisa identifies with many other key issues flagged in the
survey. There are only enough computers because the team was bought
some small laptops which are uncomfortable to use. Staff turnover
is high and much of the team comprises locums, who Lisa says have
to move between a child in need and referral and assessment roles
depending on time pressures.
Bureaucracy
As a senior social worker, Lisa is wary of what future she would
have in social work without going in to management, but says that
an advanced practitioner role could tempt her to stay if the
bureaucracy of the job was reduced.
However, it is the issue of pay that angers Lisa most. "I don't
think the salaries are particularly good given the expectations and
length of the training," she says, adding: "And I'm one of the
better paid."
*Not her real name
This article appears in the 30 July 2009 edition of
Community Care under the headline "Bloody-minded
determination"
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