Which social work targets would you scrap?

The government has said it will introduce national indicators for vacancy and turnover rates in children's services to improve the regulation and supply of social work.

But council leaders have warned that an increase in rules and targets supposed to improve child protection is instead overloading stretched social work teams.

So I wondered, what indicators and targets are actually helpful to social workers and which ones should just be scrapped?

• Filed under: social work, national indicators, targets

I think the turnover and vacancy rates in children's services are a good indicator of how well that LA value and support it's staff, working practices etc. It speaks volumes about everything else that is going on...a great idea, but who will work in the bad ones? Will this actually involve turning them around to make things better based on poor indicators or will they employ the transparent strategy of upping the salaries to attract people in, only for SW employment figures to slump 2 yrs down the line when the obligatory period is fulfilled?