Care Review: key proposals for the children’s services workforce
Derren Hayes
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
A range of challenges including excess bureaucracy, ineffective technology and out-of-date legislation have resulted in a workforce crisis in many aspects of children’s social care, which requires a complete overhaul.
The Care Review states that change is needed across the children’s social care workforce if its recommendations are to be implemented and improve outcomes for children and families. This means “giving professionals the time and resources to build strong, respectful relationships with children and families” and supporting the development of expertise so that these relationships can bring about change.
Here, the key workforce reforms are set out with reaction from sector leaders.
Social worker role
The review outlines how navigating the “complicated, bureaucratic and too often risk averse” children’s social care system takes social workers away from supporting children and families. That only a third of case-holding social workers’ time is spent working with families is described as “a staggering misuse of the system’s greatest asset”.
It links social workers’ frustration over the administration burden with high staff turnover, citing Department for Education data showing that 8.6 per cent of the workforce left children’s social work completely in 2020/21 (see graphics). Other factors it cites include the impact of inspection, poorly aligned legislation and local management issues.
It calls for clear action to address workload pressures and “get social workers back to practice”, setting a goal of 75 per cent of social workers holding cases – up from 66 per cent currently – and half of practitioners’ time spent working directly with children and families.
It recommends the development of a similar approach to that used for teachers from 2016–19 which saw working hours reduce on average by five hours a week and less time spent on non-teaching activities. Improving case management systems, more shift-based working patterns and enabling staff to identify inefficient and cumbersome local processes are also called for.
The British Association of Social Workers says creating a more stable workforce is crucial if the reforms are to be successful. “These changes will only be possible with an end to unfeasibly high workloads, inconsistent supervision and mentoring, and poor career and development pathways, which drive desperately-needed, experienced social workers out of the profession,” it states.
The review also identifies lack of career progression, particularly in frontline practice roles, as another problem harming the profession. “The varied and at times modest additional pay, status and professional development associated with roles such as advanced practitioners, has not gone far enough to address this long-term career structure problem,” it states.
Review chair Josh MacAlister again cites the example of teaching as providing a model for the future recommending the creation of an “early career framework” to cover the first five years of a social workers’ career and replace the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment. It would culminate in achieving the role of “expert practitioner”, which would, according to MacAlister, be an “alternative to management” and offer social workers a pay increase as they progress their careers while remaining in practice. Over time, only expert practitioners would be able to undertake certain duties, such as section 47 investigations.
Alan Wood, former government adviser and director of children’s services in Hackney from 2006–2015, welcomes the review’s call for a “new post of expert child protection specialist”.
“Social workers do a brilliant job but too many are being put on very challenging cases beyond their experience, even with support and supervision,” he says. “I believe a specialist elite group of child protection investigators with the authority, seniority and powers to take service and resource decisions would help develop the skills of social workers and take responsibility for complex cases.”
However, Wood believes such roles should not be restricted to social workers alone.
“They must be open to a wider skill set,” he says. “There is little evidence of the necessary analytical, investigative and forensic skills being taught on social work courses. Police officers, teachers, health professional and others have a wide range of skills which could be utilised for this work, but they, like social workers, would need additional support and training to create this new child protection professional.”
The review also recommends the introduction of national pay scales to bring greater coherence to workforce plans across local authorities, “ensuring that all employers are competing for talent by focusing on the right things, namely, valuing time spent with children and families and creating the right conditions for excellent social work practice”.
Leadership and management
Social Work England should introduce a requirement that a registered social worker needs to spend 100 hours each year in direct practice, the review concludes, stating that this would be a way for leaders, inspectors, policymakers and academics to “keep up with the realities of frontline practice”.
“This requirement would bring thousands of experienced social workers back in regular contact with the complexities of children’s social care,” it states.
Social work lecturer at the Open University, Joe Hanley says the proposal is unrealistic. Writing on Twitter, he says: “If we wanted to encourage practice engagement with academics and managers the answer is to create the circumstances where supportive partnerships can develop, which requires reducing workload pressures on all involved, something this report fails to address.”
Several proposals aim to enhance the role of children’s services leaders. The new National Children’s Social Care Framework will clarify leaders’ purpose and objectives, and inspection will be amended to reinforce this. Greater transparency in data will help leaders make evidence-based decisions, while changes to multi-agency safeguarding working will, the review says, “reinvigorate” the director of children’s services (DCS) role. It calls on the government to undertake a review of the DCS role in light of proposed changes in the schools white paper and SEND green paper “to ensure they are a champion for children and families locally”.
“This should include ensuring they have the levers they need to play this role,” it states. “For instance, introducing a duty to consult the DCS for relevant partner agency strategies relevant to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.”
Wood says it is the right time to review the DCS role. “The introduction of the new multi-agency partnerships, particularly the responsibility for protecting children placed on the three safeguarding partners (police chief constable, council chief executive and chief officer of the clinical commissioning group/integrated care system) means that the statutory guidance on the DCS and lead member is out-of-date, confusing and not consistent with the new legislation,” he says.
“The review suggests that changes in education potentially create a new and important senior role of a specific champion for families and children across all council services. This is an important gap which local authorities could and should fill.”
The review also calls for action to address the low number of people from ethnic minority groups that go on to be a DCS – just six per cent compared to a non-white social work workforce of 23 per cent.
“There should also be a positive action pathway with clear targets across programmes for ethnic minority social workers to address under-representation in leadership roles,” it adds.
The report highlights the shortage of residential care staff, particularly registered managers, citing Ofsted data that shows 10 per cent of homes are without a manager at any one time. Creating a new leadership programme will help train hundreds of new managers and halve the shortage within five years, it adds.
IRO and advocacy
The review calls for the scrapping of independent reviewing officers (IROs), who it says “lack the independence to challenge poor social work practice, whilst also not having enough meaningful contact with children to champion their wishes and interests effectively”.
Andy Elvin, chief executive of Tact Care, backs the move. He says: “Is this role having any impact on young people? My answer [is] ‘no’. It is important to have an independent advocate for a young person but they’re not independent.”
In the place of IROs, the review recommends the creation of an independent advocacy service for children in care.
“Advocacy is an afterthought in the current system, with some local authorities failing to provide any service to children who need to raise concerns about their care,” it states.
The review also recommends that advocates take on the functions currently undertaken by regulation 44 visitors to report on the quality of care provided in children’s homes.
Rita Waters, group chief executive of National Youth Advocacy Service, backs the calls for a greater role for advocates. However, she warns that the removal of the IRO and regulation 44 visitor roles present a “double-edged sword”.
“On one hand, it will reinforce the role of independent advocates who support young people,” she says. “However, it also presents the danger of diluting opportunities for safeguarding children and young people.”
Foster care services
A key plank of the reforms focus on boosting local authority foster care services and setting a target to recruit 9,000 more carers over the next three years through a national recruitment campaign. Thereafter, regional care co-operatives (RCC), new bodies to oversee all care commissioning in an area, should be tasked with managing recruitment based on a good understanding of children’s needs in their local area.
Elvin says the government should establish RCCs quickly. “They do need to be the driving force behind the campaign; you need that infrastructure there first,” he explains. “We need a national campaign for foster carers, like we’ve had for teachers, because we know that works.
“If you had a targeted campaign for people in their 20s and early 30s that…would be useful for children coming into care at 15/16 because you don’t have that stigma of someone their parents’ age trying to be another parent.”
Children’s minister Will Quince says the government will focus on providing foster care applicants with more support in an effort to improve the number that see the approval process through, which is currently very low.