Joint Welsh effort to recruit staff

A report into the social services workforce in Wales is expected to
call for greater collaboration between local authorities on
tackling the shortage of social workers.

The report, written by Tony Garthwaite, chair of the Association of
Directors of Social Services Wales workforce committee, is due to
be published this week and is likely to recommend greater
collaboration between Wales’s 22 local authorities in the
recruitment, training, pay and benefits of social workers.

Such an approach would be consistent with plans being drawn up by
the Welsh Local Government Association to organise social care
services on a regional basis.

The report is also set to look at Wales’s capacity to train more
social workers and the need to refine career pathways.