Recently in Recruitment Category

Social workers' salaries have been a hot topic on CareSpace for the past couple of weeks. On one thread, the discussion has focused on whether or not social workers deserve to be paid more or less than other public sector staff. A central question seems to be, should pay be assessed according to the risk involved in the job?

A panel discussion at last week's LGA conference Children's Services in the Spotlight explored whether the sector's relatively low salaries were responsible for the falling number of social workers, discouraging new recruits from signing on while encouraging veterans to move to better paying pastures.

Well done to the child protection social workers of Cheshire West and Chester and their managers who gave the BBC's One Show access to film what they do.

Well done also to the anonymous parents who allowed some elements of their case to be shown on TV and who were willing to talk in a positive way about their experiences. Of course the report raised the Orkney, Cleveland and Baby P scandals, but only in context, and I think this was greatly outweighed by the day-to-day reality of a child protection office being seen on prime time TV, even if it was only for 5 minutes.

You can watch the report at the link above.

by Bronagh Miskelly

The 11% vacancy rate for social workers across England's councils, revealed by our exclusive investigation, is both shocking and not unexpected.

 by Bronagh Miskelly

One of the messages from the serious case review of the Baby P case is that problems arose from personal errors of judgement rather than a systemic or procedural failure. In fact some commentators are arguing that the errors of judgement were in part due to professionals being hidebound by the new systems.

 

By Daniel Lombard

To describe the vetting procedures employed by three councils in the Christopher Nwokoro case as amateurish would be an insult to amateurs everywhere. 

He joined them as an ultra-qualified, registered social worker with bags of experience. But what clinched it for this idealistic young people's champion was an unsolicited reference purporting to be from a former employer, describing him as an "easy-going fellow" with a "passion for children".

Slight problem - Nwokoro was neither registered, qualified, nor remotely competent, as Denbighshire council in Wales, Highland council in Scotland and Stockport council in north west England discovered to their cost.