Social work recruitment and retention: tackling the crisis

There is a recruitment and retention crisis in social work in England. Vacancy and turnover rates are up, and most people do not stay in local authority social work for longer than 5 years. Government data shows that the number of children and family social workers declined in 2022. The number of vacancies grew by 21% and the number of agency workers were up 13% from the previous year. Average caseloads and the sickness absence rate were also up. The situation is worse in Children’s Services, but there are similar patterns in Adult Services.

I have worked in social work and social care for over 25 years and, while these problems are not new, they are perhaps as dire now as they have been throughout my career. Urgent action needs to be taken now to address this problem. This needs to be led by our social work leaders, who are positioned close to Government. I call upon our Chief Social Workers, Isobelle Trowler and Lyn Romeo to convene a Cross-Government Social Work Task Force led by the Office of the Chief Social Worker to address this problem. This needs to bring together Government ministers, civil servants and social work leaders (such as Ruth Allen, CEO of the British Association of Social Workers) and they need to be provided with the mandate to take action.

We cannot delay in solving this crisis. Social workers are part of a safety net for vulnerable children and adults, a safety net steadily being torn to shreds by over a decade of funding cuts and neglect by policy makers. Funded social care is now available only to those with the highest level of need in England; waiting lists for community mental health teams are longer than ever before and the mental health social work workforce is divided into tackling either local authority or NHS priorities; and family support is only available in rarefied instances for children and young people, for example. We cannot wait for a change in Government to start working on this problem; action needs to be taken now. This action needs to be joined up to bridge the silos created by the separation of children’s and adult social work. The solutions are not complex, but they require political willpower to enact.

Recruitment

Social work bursaries

Most social workers undertake their initial education and training on an undergraduate or postgraduate university-based programme. However, the Government has prioritised funding other routes into social work. In 2022 the Department for Education tendered for an £80m fast track programme for children and families social workers. Expanding Frontline is not the answer. It costs three times as much to the Government as traditional routes, with attrition rates comparable to traditional University programmes. Frontline actively encourages graduates to stay in practice for a short period of time prior to moving into leadership positions or other jobs, so it is not the solution to the current social worker shortages.

In its response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the Government has also announced funding for 500 apprenticeships for children and family social workers. It is great that there is an expansion in different routes into social work, but there has been a systematic neglect of the main route – via a university undergraduate or postgraduate degree in social work. These are valuable gateway qualifications which provide learning opportunities across children’s and adult social work. Students are enthusiastic about the quality and range of their learning experiences and opportunities – as highlighted by one of our second year MA students in a recent interview for Children’s Social Work Matters, for example.

The bursary provided to students on social work qualifying programmes has been frozen for a number of years while funding for other routes into social work has expanded. People looking for a public sector career shop around the bursaries available to them and social work is not an attractive option as the bursary has not kept pace with other professions. The social work bursary needs to be increased to make it competitive and to arrest the declining numbers of applicants for social work programmes. The number of bursaries available should also be increased to support an increase in the number of students.

Pay

Pay levels for social workers have been steadily eroded so that in the last decade they received the lowest pay growth in comparison with other professional groups and sectors. While many people do not choose a career in social work because of the pay, many do choose to leave for better paid jobs with less stress. Social work could become a more attractive career option if pay levels were improved, assisting both recruitment and retention.

Practice education

Expansion in the number of students will require an expansion in the number of practice educators. Each student requires a practice educator for each of their practice learning placements. Most universities are in Teaching Partnerships with social work employers such as Local Authorities and NHS Trusts to manage the supply and demand for placements in accordance with workforce needs. The training of new practice educators to support a growth in student numbers is not straight-forward, as it is requires caseload relief and team support to manage placements effectively. Freeing up practitioners to train as practice educators and host student placements requires a little spare capacity in the system, of which there is none as the numbers of practitioners falls. Therefore, additional resources are required to support teams to host student placements and enable practitioners to train as practice educators.

Public image of social work

Most people do not come into contact with social workers so the profession remains somewhat shrouded in mystery and misconception. Social workers are often characterised as child snatchers, removing children and destroying families. Though when they do not intervene and a child is killed, they are pilloried by the media. The complexity of the work, the skills and knowledge required to practice effectively, and the breath of responsibilities is largely unknown by the general public. Lacking the public support which other public sector professionals such as doctors, nurses and teachers enjoy, compounds the recruitment problem for social work. A public information campaign is required to provide accurate information about what social work is all about and to assist in the recruitment of new students.

Retention

In the Yorkshire Urban and Rural Social Work Teaching Partnership we are currently undertaking a piece of work on retention. We are bringing social work academics and practitioners together to discuss the retention crisis in social work to find some local solutions. This process has highlighted what keeps people in their job or with their employer, and what encourages them to leave. Combined with messages from research, some wider solutions are emerging. The Social Work Research Podcast has featured a few of these; others are widely known but are politically challenging to implement.

Improve working conditions

It may be too obvious to state that improved working conditions can improve retention, but there is evidence that this is the case. A study in Sweden has found that introducing weekly small group supervision for newly qualified social workers; team-strengthening activities; and training for the team leaders can improve working conditions for social workers. These actions do not require significant resources, but they are likely to make difficult jobs more palatable and retain experienced workers. The study found that ratings of the climate in the organisation improved; leadership and collaboration in teams improved; practitioners were more satisfied and more likely to want to stay; and all vacancies were filled. Looking after staff and improving organisational cultures encourages practitioners to stay.

Provide relationship-based supervision

Practitioners bemoan supervision which provides no opportunity for rich discussion of their work or its emotional impact on them. Managers who focus solely on processes, procedures and the completion of tasks are not sufficiently looking after their staff. A case study of relationship-based supervision drawn from an ethnographic study revealed how a manager focused on personal development, reflections and case discussions in a pivotal supervision session and prevented an experienced practitioner from leaving her job in a children and families team. Relationship-based supervision helps to retain experienced social workers in their roles.

Reduce bureaucracy

Statutory social work roles have become saturated in processes, bureaucracy and tasks which tie practitioners to their computer. As well as a lack of reflective relationship-based supervision, practitioners bemoan the lack of opportunities for direct work with children or adults. People come in to social work to work with people and not spend all their time in front of a computer, but employers do not appear able to free practitioners up from the bureaucracy associated with the role.

There is growing evidence about the harmful effects of bureaucracy. Not only is it driving social workers away from the profession, but it is increasing risks to people who social workers are there to protect. It contributes to practitioners losing sight of the person they are working with and their needs, and striving for improved outcomes has become less important than ensuring processes are followed. A systematic review of social workers’ views on bureaucracy lays bare the harmful effect it has on the profession and its contribution to the dehumanisation of practitioners. Bureaucracy needs to be tackled to stop practitioners leaving the profession after only a few years.

Ban social work agencies

Social workers can earn up to twice as much working for an employment agency as for a Local Authority doing essentially the same job. The cost of living crisis has forced many practitioners to leave their permanent roles and take up temporary positions with social work agencies so that they can increase their earnings. Employers then turn to the same agencies to help them fill their vacancies, which escalates their wage bills. Low pay in the profession needs to be tackled, but so do the agencies which make a profit out of vacancies. The Government has signalled an intention to cap the wages paid to social workers employed by an agency to the same level as others working for the same Local Authority. This is a step in the right direction, but I would argue that the Government needs to go further and ban them altogether. The commission they take could otherwise be used to provide permanent contracts for social workers or pay for services for children or adults with social care needs. Banning agencies from having social workers on their books while increasing pay rates across the board will help to ensure that vacancies are filled and social workers receive the pay they deserve.

There are no quick fixes to the recruitment and retention problem which has been long in the making. However, taking these measures will go some way to solving this crisis.

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