Agenda item

The report provides an overview of the challenges of and responses to the recruitment and retention of social workers.

G Reiter, Service Director Children’s Social Care provided an introduction to the report which gave an overview of the challenges of and responses to the recruitment and retention of social workers.

Members were advised that the recruitment and retention of experienced social workers was an issue for all local authorities.  Northumberland’s well established AYSE Academy for newly qualified social workers was well regarded within the region with competition for places strong, which assisted in “growing our own” workforce.  The decision for social workers within the Academy to return to office based working in order to ensure that they received the appropriate level of support during the continuing pandemic, was welcomed by the Committee. 

Councillor Renner-Thompson, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services advised that the recruitment and retention of social workers was one of his six key priorities and was also a part of the Council’s Corporate Plan.  He encouraged Members to visit the Academy and stated he was keen to invest further to increase numbers in the Academy.

Members recognised that social work was an extremely demanding profession and it took a special type of person to do this role.  Councillor Swinburn highlighted that Kevin Waggott, one of our social workers was up for a National Award.   Monitoring was undertaken of Covid related illness against other illness with sickness levels dropping during lockdown as people could work from home.  Sickness levels had now increased as people no longer worked from home in the same way and people were more likely to be mixing and picking up viruses.   Whilst some staff were required to be office based for operational reasons, a large number of staff were still working from home and it was confirmed that support was still being provided to these staff members. 

Members suggested that options could be explored which would allow more flexibility in working arrangements for social workers to prevent them leaving to take up positions with agencies for this type of reason.  It was also highlighted that the informal networking which took place in office environments was significantly underestimated and time should be built into the working week for people to be able to talk to each other.  The importance of the Academy in transitioning the newly qualified social workers into teams was outlined with this being reflected in increased retention of these staff and the wider effective use of the Academy to train staff for a variety of roles in Northumberland.  It was clarified that all staff had flexible working arrangements however this must be balanced with the need for a consistent service to be provided. 

In response to questions related to the retention of those social workers coming through the Academy, it was clarified that some of the first cohort had since moved, however this was to be expected as they gained more experience and were promoted.  There had only been one or two who had dropped out from the Academy with a significant number of those joining the Academy having already been students at Northumberland.  The suggestion of expanding the Academy to carry out the service on behalf of other local authorities had been thought about, but had not been progressed.

RESOLVED that the contents of the report be noted.