Agenda item

[Courtney Abbott,Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner for Children and Adults, to present the report]

The Chair invited Cllr Linda Leach, Cabinet Member for Adults, to introduce the agenda items 7 and 8. The Cabinet Member wanted to formally record her thanks to all social workers and social care staff on the World Social Work Day who worked so hard during the pandemic. The Cabinet Member praised their dedication and efforts to support families.

The Chair invited Courtney Abbott, Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner for Children and Adults, and Jenny Rogers, Principal Social Worker Adult Services, to present their presentation and report to the panel for pre-decision scrutiny.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner gave an overview of the background to the findings of the Social Work Health Check survey annual report 2020. The health check survey is done annually as part of Wolverhampton Council’s ongoing self-assessment. The survey is completed online.

The findings from the heath check will  inform Workforce Development Planning and also support the continuous improvement of Adult Social Work in Wolverhampton. The survey allows social workers to have their say on different aspects of what it is like to work for Wolverhampton Council. The presentation would focus on findings from three key areas – workload manageability, staff wellbeing, an equality and diversity and panel would be invited to comment on these areas.

The panel were advised that the survey took place between 2 November and the 14 December 2020, which coincided with the start of the second national lockdown which may have affected the response rate. The survey was open to all registered social workers and social work students working in a social work capacity with an adult services include agency workers as well. In total 65 responses were received, which is a 52% response rate. The response rate was slightly lower compared to the previous year when the rate was 65%.

The panel were advised that deadline for submitting responses was extended and employees were encouraged to take the opportunity to complete the survey form if they wished.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner advised the panel that in terms of workload manageability it was reported that overall case workloads decreased slightly since last year and according to local information the average casework is 20. The number of session workers who said their workload is unmanageable has slightly increased by 3% when compared to the previous year survey findings  The increase was considered to be due to the impact of Covid 19 and the challenges that this has posed to the workforce.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner advised the panel that there had been a considerable increase in the number of social workers who reported having regular supervision sessions. The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner commented that a concern highlighted about the quality of supervision related to the career development.

The issue will be addressed through the introduction of professional conversations and the new supervision policy, which was introduced in February 2021.The updated policy details the issues managers need to consider within supervision sessions, such as workload manageability. The panel were advised of other measures to respond to the concerns about workload and the highlighted the importance of regular supervision in ensuring the social worker workloads are manageable.

The implementation of a new social care system called Eclipse later in the year is also expected to help streamline current processes and reduce the amount of time that social workers spend completing forms.

The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner commented on the responses to issues related to equalities and diversity and the number who reported that there had examples of where they felt unfairly treated on the grounds of the protected characteristics. The Quality and Improvement Advanced Practitioner commented on the key actions to aimed at addressing this issue, including the commissioning of training to support group conversations around issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion.

In addition, the Council is also commissioning No offence training sessions, which will be supported by promotion of the safe space workers so they can report any serious concerns in confidence. The service is also recruiting equalities champions within each social work team. In January 2021 there was specific training for social workers on anti-discriminatory practice and a further session on anti-oppressive practice will be commissioned for later in the year.

The panel thanked the presenter for their presentation.

The panel queried about the wellbeing and mental health support offered to social workers and the level of take-up of current support services. The panel were concerned that some social workers may be reluctant to raise issues or ask for help because of stigma attached to mental illness.

Jenny Rogers, Principal Social Worker, advised that she does not have numbers on the take up of services, this might be available from HR. The Principal Social Worker advised the panel that the issue of wellbeing is a key part of the work being done to support social workers, such as the promotion and activities linked to World Social Work Day. There is a commitment from the Director to managers to support social workers and also encouraging people to take screen breaks and hopes that people feel able to ask for help with a mental health issue. There is an acceptance however, that more work the service can do to promote the range of support available and include the issue of wellbeing in everyday conversations to reduce stigma about the issue.

The panel asked the work being done to review and refresh the range of help available to assess what works and what does not work and also new ideas such as mindfulness courses. The Principal Social Worker responded that the service is constantly reviewing the take up of wellbeing sessions. The panel queried if any data known about the take up of support from the Employee Assistance Scheme.

The panel queried the reported increase in the number of part time social workers working more than 10 hours over their contracted hours on average.

The Principal Social Worker responded that managers have been made aware of the importance of discussing workload issues in supervision meetings and suggested that issue could be added as a question to next year’s survey as it would be interesting to know the reasons why people are working more than their contracted hours.

The panel commented that it would be difficult to get an overall view of what social workers experiences with a low response rate of 52% and suggested that more positive engagement is needed to encourage more people to complete the survey and to see it is a priority for the service. The panel highlighted the importance of getting more responses to future surveys.

The panel queried the survey finding that 26% of social workers reported that there were not satisfied with the quality of their supervision. The panel welcomed the measures outlined in the introduced to respond to this issue.

The Principal Social Worker welcomed the feedback and acknowledged that there was room for improvement and in particular to get more social workers to complete the survey form, while at the same time recognising the challenges of remote working. There was a commitment to increase the survey response rate, for example encouraging managers to allow social workers to leave meetings early in order to complete the survey form and reviewing the numbers of questions.

The panel thanked the presenters again for the report.

Resolved:

1. The panel endorsed the comments of the Cllr Leach Cabinet Member for Adults about the professionalism and dedication shown by the social workers during the pandemic.

2. The panel agreed to receive a progress report on the impact of planned and current actions in response to the issues highlighted in the survey findings to a future meeting of the panel.