Two years ago, Lincolnshire county council had a bill of £4m for agency staff to fill its children and social worker vacancies. Like many councils, it was struggling to recruit permanent staff; this, in turn, pushes up dropout rates, creating a vicious circle.
National social worker turnover in England was 16% in 2016, up from 13% in 2015, and agency staff made up 16% of English councils’ children’s social work workforce in 2016 and 2017. However, an All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children inquiry last year found agency use was more than 40% in some areas.
This has an unavoidable impact on the quality of care. For children in particular, who may take time to develop trust with their social worker, continuity is essential. Some authorities are turning to golden hellos and retention payments – which can be as high as £10,000 a year for 12 months continued service – in order to create a more permanent workforce and cut back on agency staff.
But Lincolnshire has chosen a different path, and today only 7.4% of staff are from an agency – less than half the national and regional averages.
“Our aspiration is to get our agency use as low as possible and build up our own staff so that we can give our families consistent support. Costs are an issue, but it’s also about creating a stable workforce to support Lincolnshire families,” says Debbie Barnes, director of children’s services for Lincolnshire council.
So how has the authority, which is ranked “good” by Ofsted inspectors, bucked the national trend?
“We spoke to our staff and asked them what would make it better for them to work in Lincolnshire,” she adds. “Overwhelmingly they said they liked working here, but what they wanted was manageable caseloads, good management oversight, and support in their development. They want to feel they are doing a good job.”
Lincolnshire’s principal social worker, Sam Clayton, points out that the authority has worked with the University of Sheffield to develop accredited modules “responsive” to Lincolnshire’s individual needs. There have been courses designed around court work, and mentoring and support, plus another in leadership and management in children’s services, produced with the expertise of Sheffield’s business and management school.
Clayton believes this training partnership has been “critical” in retaining staff, and has even tempted some agency staff to convert to permanent posts. “Most of our social workers aren’t motivated by money but want other things,” says Clayton. “It’s about value and what the post-qualifying offer is. They like the postgraduate credits. They like learning – they aren’t arrogant enough to think they know everything and they want to continue to be challenged.”
Lincolnshire’s “bridging the gap” career development scheme – which specifically supports level 2 social workers to become advanced practitioners – is also improving retention rates and enhancing the professional development and skills of its workforce. “Staff have found it quite challenging – they were quite exposed to other people around their learning – but they have found it rewarding in terms of their professional development,” says Barnes.
The authority is also helping to spread best practice on the national stage. Lincolnshire is one of the first authorities in the country to be recruited to the government’s partners in practice programme, which brings together what the Department for Education calls “the best practitioners and leaders in children’s social care” to improve the system.
Partner authorities contribute to national policy innovation and transformation, and are the testing bed for new ways of working. Lincolnshire is leading on improving safeguarding and embedding social work’s signs of safety model of working. The council was one of the first authorities to adopt this new way of working, originally developed in Australia, which recognises and builds on the existing strengths in the family to bring about better outcomes. Also within its remit are:
- New ways of managing risk in young people.
- Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to improving academic outcomes and opportunities for looked-after children.
- Bringing youth justice staff into wider children’s services.
As a partner authority, the council is expected to support local authorities that require improvement to get better. In Lincolnshire, social workers have been mentoring and coaching their peers around the country, including those working in Rotherham and Tower Hamlets. “The opportunity has been highly valued – they swap ideas with the other authorities,” says Barnes. “It’s a two-way relationship. We see it as really positive.”
Barnes knows that having a stable management team, and working for an authority that is politically stable, benefits the workforce: “It means we can put in place long-term strategies to enact change.” The team’s achievements are borne out by the results of its recent staff survey: “We found that 98% of children’s services staff felt they had a good bunch of colleagues they can work with. That reflects the team approach we have – everyone wants to improve outcomes but it’s also about supporting colleagues in their work.”
