Workforce pressures risk pushing council social workers to agencies, research warns

The poll around 12,700 of children’s social workers across London and the south east of England, carried out by the London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) and the South East Sector Led Improvement Programme (SESLIP), found that workplace pressures are pushing social workers to leave local authority employment.

The research which spans 52 local authorities, finds that four in 10 social workers describe their workloads as unmanageable.

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Black and ethnic minority social workers were more likely to consider leaving their roles for agency work, citing cost of living, racism, and discrimination as key reasons.  

Jacquie Burke, director of children’s services at Hackney Council, and Beverley Hendricks, assistant director of safeguarding and social care at Haringey Council are joint leaders of the Association of London Directors of Children's Services Leadership in Colour Programme.

They said: “This new research is incredibly useful for revealing the experience of our black and global majority workforces.

“We have to address the structural inequalities in our workplaces that lead to black and global majority workers choosing agency over local authority employers.”

Despite workforce pressures, the survey found an ongoing “passion for the job” among staff.

More than half of those surveyed said they felt valued in their roles.

The research was carried out as part of the Big Listen project which is a collaborative local authority project that seeks to better understand the views of children’s social workers.

Survey respondents included social work managers, students, agency workers and council-employed children’s social workers.

Latest government figures show record numbers of social workers leaving the profession amid longstanding concerns about the recruitment and retention staff.

Last year saw a decline in the number of children’s social workers directly employed by local authorities for the first time in five years, with vacancies increasing by 21 per cent.

Meanwhile, the use of agency staff increased by 13 per cent.

Last year, Josh MacAlister’s final report in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care recommended a reduction in the use of agency social workers, describing it as “costly” and counter-productive to the goal of providing “stable professional relationships for children and families”.