Glasgow reforms to boost staff capacity

Front-line social workers will take on greater responsibility
for making decisions under plans by Glasgow Council to restructure
its social services department.

The radical reforms, which are designed to address the 40 per
cent vacancy rates affecting some parts of the department, will see
the management post of senior social worker scrapped. It will be
replaced by a practice team leader post, which will include
responsibility for the toughest cases and the management of a small
team.

Current senior social workers will either move back to a social
worker post but on the same salary of £27,800, or become a
practice team leader following an assessment of their management
skills.

Practice team leaders will be paid a starting salary of
£30,000, which will rise to £33,750 with experience.

Director of social work services David Comley said the
proposals, which will go to committee later this month, would
create a “much leaner, less bureaucratic structure”.

He added: “Returning experienced social workers to casework will
enable a significant 30 per cent increase in caseload capacity for
teams straight away.”

Other changes include the replacement of the home maker and
social work assistant posts with a social care worker post, with a
£3,000 phased in pay increase, taking the top salary from
£19,000 to £22,000.

The review follows a survey of staff attitudes carried out by
Mori, which showed that 77 per cent of respondents did not feel
valued by the council, 58 per cent said they had too much stress in
their job and 65 per cent of respondents felt some of the decisions
they had to refer upwards they could make themselves.

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