By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Almost a quarter of all children’s social worker jobs in Nottingham are taken up by more expensive temporary agency staff, according to the City Council.
Agency social workers can earn upwards of £30 an hour, more than the average pay of a permanent council social worker.
Temporary staff are being used to fill gaps in the authority’s own workforce amid difficult market conditions, but they prove more costly to the taxpayer and less stable for the people who need their support.
Ofsted, the education watchdog which conducts inspections, rated the Labour-run authority’s children’s services as ‘inadequate’ in 2022.
Inspectors said the service had fallen from ‘requires improvement’ to the lowest rating possible, and said some children had been left at “continued risk of harm”.
An action plan was put in place and progress is being monitored by an improvement board, while regular Ofsted visits have taken place to ensure critical changes are made.
The last visit took place in July, and the report was published in September, which noted “early signs of tangible improvements”.
But the use of agency staff and inconsistencies in the quality of practice was criticised.
Ailsa Barr, the Director of Children’s Services, said agency staff make up roughly 20 per cent of the social worker workforce.
“We would want to be getting to a place that our use of agency staff is in line with other local authorities,” she said during a Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee meeting on October 26.
“But I would say across the country we are facing a huge challenge with that.
“At the moment our use is above average, but the average is still relatively high so we would want to get below that.”
The Government has been planning to introduce a cap on agency costs to bring them in line with permanent staff, as well as stopping agencies only offering out a teams of temporary social workers rather than on an individual basis.
The changes form part of its response to the independent review of children’s social care.
However any changes are not expected until next year at the earliest.
In the meantime the council has been making changes to try to improve the stability of its own workforce.
This includes reducing the number of active child protection plans so workers have manageable case loads, as well as opening up social worker apprenticeships.
So far the council has created six apprenticeship social worker posts who started in January on a three-year programme.
A further cohort of six social worker apprentices will start in January 2024.
While a degree is required to become a social worker, Ms Barr stressed there are jobs within the service that do not require a qualification, such as a family support worker role.
“We have quite a lot of roles for people who aren’t social work qualified,” she said.
“We are keen always to open those opportunities up to a wide section of people in the community.”
Cllr Cheryl Barnard (Lab), Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People and Schools, added: “We had an event with staff to celebrate the progress we have made on transformation.
“I attended that and it was really good, staff were really enthusiastic about the changes we are making.
“We are really stepping up that work with our care leavers and that will be really important for our next monitoring visit.”
