Administration frustrates personal advisers' work with care leavers, study finds

A report by social investment organisation Social Finance found that just under a quarter of personal advisers' time is taken up by administrative tasks, including updating case management records and communicating with colleagues and other services.

Advisers also said that IT systems they are using can be difficult to navigate, which is adding to the administrative burden they face. 

The research team was also told by advisers that they have to spend time "chasing up" other services and said there was a lack of co-ordination between care leaver services and partners.

"[The] analysis revealed that the administrative tasks which personal advisers spend most time on include updating the case management system, communicating internally with other team members and services about specific cases, and chasing up external services," states the report.

"Personal advisers and managers in three local authorities discussed how case management systems can be difficult to navigate, which makes the process of updating cases slow and difficult.

"Furthermore, different reporting requirements can require the personal advisers to manually replicate information across different parts of the young person's case file.

"A lack of joined-up working between services compounds this issue. Personal advisers told Leaving Well that they are often unclear about the amount of support that other services can provide, and other services are not always aware of the support that care leavers need."

The report was based on analysis of leaving care services supported through Social Finance's Leaving Well initiative in three local authorities, Leeds City Council, the London Borough of Havering and Southampton City Council.

The research found that around half of young people on personal advisers' caseloads are "in a fragile state" at any one time.

Personal advisers spend around 30 per cent of their time working with a core of 20 per cent of young people experiencing a crisis, the report says.

"Personal advisers interviewed described how this frustratingly prevents them from offering proactive and preventative support to the rest of their young people," the report adds.

The government's care leaver strategy was published in 2016 and pledged to review the role of personal advisers, although this has not yet taken place.

Personal advisers had been responsible for providing care leavers with support until they are 21, or up to 25 if they are in education or training. But since 1 April they have been required to provide that support to all care leavers until they are 25.

Earlier this year the government pledged to increase funding for the role, to more than £12m until 2021, to cover this new responsibility

But in March the Local Government Association warned that care leaver support is suffering from underfunding, with government money only enough to support a fifth of care leavers. This amounts to around 4,700 young people out of an estimated total of more than 23,000.

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.