Council invests £4m to cut social work caseloads
Neil Puffett and Adam Offord
Thursday, November 10, 2016
??A council has announced plans to invest £4m to cut social worker caseloads in order to save money in the long-term by reducing the number of children taken into care.
Walsall Council said it has to reduce children's services spending by £5.8m over the next three years. It currently spends £51m a year on children's services.
Part of the plan is to pump £4m into creating a "threshold guarantee" to ensure a maximum of 15 cases per social worker, or 12 cases per newly qualified social worker.
The council's aim is to reduce the number of looked-after children by 100, from the current level of 639. The move would save an estimated £2.63m over the next three years.
"The proposed reduction in social workers' caseloads would enable them to work more intensively with children who are looked after to support maintaining them safely at home and promoting placement stability when they are looked after," the council's draft budget for 2017/18 states.
"These proposals will be delivered by robust project management and oversight and will ensure that children are supported to remain at home or returned home from care only when it is safe to do so, and 'in house' placements are maximised."
The council also plans to cut funding for youth services by £798,373 over the three-year period. This would represent an 83 per cent cut on the current £1.02m annual budget for youth services.
Savings would be generated by integrating youth work activities and provision currently provided by the council's targeted youth work team into the 0 to 19 family support team and ending all commissioned targeted youth work over two years. ??
Meanwhile, £208,216 would be saved in 2017/18 from the children's centre service through "management efficiencies" by bringing together 0 to 19 family support services and cutting funding for schools to deliver stay and play groups. ??
Cuts will also be made to the transport budget for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
"It is well documented that the government has set all councils the tough challenge to reduce spending by 2020, and Walsall Council is no exception," the council said. ?
??"It's only through taking bold and sometimes uncomfortable steps to reduce costs that we are able to keep vulnerable people safe, have the ability to invest in our environment and continue to create the jobs and attract enterprise opportunities that bring future prosperity to the borough.
"We want to give residents and service users the opportunity to have their say, so we are starting a conversation to explain our plans."
A consultation on the proposals runs until 9 December.
