Presentation of the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services

This presentation provides an update on the Children’s Social Work Workforce.

The Committee considered the presentation of the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services which provided an update on the Children’s Social Work Workforce.

Key points and themes in the presentation included:

• National context, including the Independent Children's Social Care Review and the potential risks and opportunities arising from the Government’s response;
• Manchester’s current position, including workforce demographics and workforce stability;
• Children’s Social Worker workforce priorities; and
• Progress to date.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• The importance of clinical supervision;
• Making the workforce more representative of the communities they served at all levels, noting that in some areas there were higher levels of people without qualifications;
• Request for demographic data at different levels within the service, including senior leadership; and
• What was being done to retain experienced staff.

The Chair stated that she was arranging to meet with the Manchester Adult Education Service to discuss providing paths for people to enter social work.

The Deputy Strategic Director of Children’s Services reported that a clinical supervision model was in place in relation to some areas of work, including complex safeguarding, and that good quality supervision was provided by social workers’ line managers.  He informed Members about the roll-out of Schwartz Rounds, group reflective practice forums giving staff an opportunity to reflect on the emotional and social aspects of their role and offered to provide further information on this at a later date.  He agreed to provide Members with the requested demographic data in relation to staff at different levels within the service, while highlighting that there was more work to be done in relation to ethnicity and senior leadership roles.  In response to a question about the use of agency staff, he advised that there were 46 agency staff but that these were not evenly spread across the service.  He highlighted the apprenticeship vocational route to social work and reported that, as well as recruiting Manchester residents, there was also work taking place to recruit a more culturally diverse workforce.  He advised that there had been some improvements with retention and highlighted the career framework and work to develop a post-qualifying programme for staff to support their further development, whether or not they chose to progress into management roles.  The Assistant Director (Children’s Social Care) explained how the Council utilised its relationship with the universities to attract social work students to come to work for the Council.  The Chair expressed concern that the requirement for GCSE mathematics in order to study for a social work degree was a barrier for some students. The Strategic Director of Children and Education Services informed the Committee about the social work apprenticeship programme, developed in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University, and reported that apprentices could join the course and do their GCSE English and mathematics studies while they were undertaking the course.

The Chair recognised the progress that had been made so far and highlighted that Committee Members would be able to get a first-hand understanding of the current situation on their visit to frontline social work services, which was due to take place on 22 March 2023.

Decision

To note that the Deputy Strategic Director of Children’s Services will provide Members with demographic data on social work staff at different levels within the service.