Social worker accreditation plans spark two-tier workforce concerns
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
The government has set out its plans for how a proposed national assessment and accreditation system for children's social workers intended to boost the quality of practice in the profession will be implemented.
The government has set out its plans for how a proposed national assessment and accreditation system for children's social workers intended to boost the quality of practice in the profession will be implemented.
Details of the scheme, outlined in a Department for Education consultation document published in late 2016, reveal it will be introduced in two distinct "phases", with it not set for full introduction in the vast majority of councils until 2019.
A decision on whether accreditation should be mandatory will not be made until 2019 at the earliest, based on the findings of the initial phase. The government has not announced any additional funding for councils to introduce the system.
Warnings disregarded
The government's proposals appear to ignore warnings issued by senior children's services leaders during the system's design stage.
Prior to the consultation, the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS) called for implementation of the new system to be rolled out at pace and fully funded as it believes this represents a new burden for local authorities.
It also argued for the new accreditation system to be mandatory due to fears that voluntary implementation could lead to a two-tier system - dividing the workforce into social workers who are accredited and those who are not.
There are three different statuses of accreditation under the scheme, depending on the role of the candidate: child and family practitioner, practice supervisor and practice leader.
Under the government's current plans, only practice leaders at all 152 local authorities will be assessed between 2017 and 2019.
Practice supervisors and frontline child and family practitioners (who together make up the vast majority of the 28,000 children and family social workers in England) will only be assessed in 31 volunteer areas involved in the first phase roll-out (see box). The remaining 121 councils will not follow until 2019/20.
The ADCS is yet to comment in detail on the proposals, saying that it wants to wait until it has consulted with members this month, but many of its original concerns appear likely to remain, namely that the workforce will be divided into social workers who are accredited and those who are not.
Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, agrees. "There is likely to be a sense of the ‘in-crowd' and the rest, at least for a period of time, " she says.
Another question is whether those who get tested first and pass potentially have an advantage in the jobs market over those who have not.
"Enterprising social workers may take their qualification to the highest bidder or best employer if the qualification is valued," she says.
Allen believes this could mean that employers seek to mitigate that risk by looking after their best qualified staff.
"It may encourage better staff care and progression rather than drive staff away," Allen says.
"There are all sorts of potential consequences from this [two-phase] approach to implementation, many unintended. This is inherent in the DfE's improvement method [for children's services].
"They are introducing change into parts of the system to see whether it can bring about lasting change across the whole system.
"The problem is that real staff and real children are experiencing the uncertainty and partiality the approach is bringing into services. And, as the education select committee and the National Audit Office recently stated, there is little evidence services are getting better and they are certainly not improving everywhere.
"Can children's services tolerate more years of unequal investment and differential treatment by the DfE, which is how this looks?"
There is also concern about the impact the introduction of accreditation could have on struggling children's services departments.
Senior DfE civil servant Graham Archer last year conceded that there are concerns about what would happen in areas facing difficulties if the pass rate does not match the 80 per cent experienced in the trial, and turns out to be closer to 50 per cent.
Among the local authorities volunteering for the first phase roll-out are Birmingham and Manchester - both of which are rated "inadequate" by Ofsted.
"There is a risk that beleaguered staff experience this as punitive and may underperform in the tests if they are not introduced very sensitively and if staff are not well prepared," Allen warns.
Appetite for success
"A failing authority needs to create a belief in, and appetite for, success among its staff. Perhaps the assessment can be part of that. But if people underperform in the tests in large numbers, it will compound recruitment problems in authorities with a poor reputation."
But it does appear that the DfE wants councils to be smart about the way they introduce accreditation. The consultation document suggests they use information from assessments of their workforce to "manage the outcome so as not to create shortages of social workers in the short term".
This could mean councils deciding who is likely to pass, and lining them up for accreditation first, while working to support weaker candidates to pass further down the line.
The DfE also says the transition to the new system can be eased by "sensible preparation".
It is encouraging employers to embed the knowledge and skills statements upon which the accreditation tests will be based, within their existing staff development, support and supervision arrangements as soon as they can.
Brigid Featherstone, professor of social work at the University of Huddersfield and co-chair of the Association of Professors of Social Work, says all local authorities will face a risk that significant proportions of their staff may fail.
"Risk [around staff failing accreditation] is something that has been articulated for every local authority," she says.
"This process is not tied to anything more fundamental around professional development. It is a one-off test. It is a huge risk to be putting staff through this.
"Apart from the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment for newly qualified social workers, what programmes are there for developing and progressing the skills of social workers?"
Featherstone is also concerned that the DfE has not addressed the issue of cost.
The DfE says phase one will explore a "mixed model" of delivery, making the best of the available local infrastructure, but also exploring whether other organisations - such as universities and training centres - could play a role in the logistics of how and where the assessment is carried out.
It has said that accreditation will be free, but Featherstone is sceptical that such a huge undertaking will be without economic cost to already hard-pressed local authorities.
"The DfE spent £2m on the proof of concept phase, so I can't imagine this is going to be a cost-free exercise," she says.
There are still a number of key issues the consultation needs to resolve. It is still not clear what the precise pass mark will be or what will happen if a social worker fails to achieve accreditation.
There is also a lack of detail on what happens if a social worker fails repeatedly and what type of work they would be prohibited from doing if they do fail.
Test ramifications
England chief children's social worker Isabelle Trowler has previously said that social workers who fail the test will not lose their registration, but warned that the type of work they are allowed to conduct is likely to be limited.
Writing in the consultation document, she said feedback from the 31 authorities in the first phase of roll-out will help the DfE make adjustments for any "unforeseen consequences" (see ‘inside view', below).
The analysis of the test results for the trial has also thrown up an issue that needs to be addressed - the apparent lower success rates for older social workers and those from some ethnic minority backgrounds.
The DfE intends to work closely with leading experts to ensure it is designing the test in such a way as to eliminate any test bias.
The consultation on the proposals closes on 14 March.
THE 31 AUTHORITIES IN PHASE 1
- North East: Durham and Hartlepool
- North West: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan
- West Midlands: Birmingham
- South West: Bath and North East Somerset
- South East: Hampshire and Kent
- London: Hammersmith & Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston, Lambeth, Richmond upon Thames and Westminster
- East: Cambridgeshire and Luton
- East Midlands: Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire
- Yorkshire and Humber: Leeds, North East Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire and Wakefield
Source: DfE consultation document
INSIDE VIEW: CONSULTATION CAN HELP DFE RESOLVE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
By Isabelle Trowler, England chief social worker for children
"National rollout of assessment and accreditation for child and family social workers will have major implications for our profession, future practice and individual social workers.
Following an extensive proof of concept phase, involving close to 1,000 social workers and many employers, we are confident that we have developed a methodology that will be able to assess the knowledge and skills of social workers.
There are many questions that we need to consult on and I hope that you find time to help us answer some of the issues we need to resolve.
In any period of change, there is the search for certainty. While we can predict many of the consequences and mitigate against those we think unwelcome, we also know we will learn a lot through the first phase of implementation.
Thirty-one local authorities have already signed up to be part of this initial rollout and will work closely with us so we can adjust the system to take account of any unforeseen consequences.
We need to continue our ongoing dialogue with the sector as a whole as we move forward with this major programme of change.
Accreditation is not a standalone initiative. It is a central part of the government's reform agenda set out in Putting Children First. We know pressures of workload, high turnover of staff and outcomes for children and their families are top of many people's priorities.
Accreditation is part of the government's long-term strategy to ensure that child and family social work is part of a national infrastructure of learning and development.
It is only through this sustained and systemic approach that those current day-to-day challenges will be properly and permanently addressed."