Agenda item

[Jenny Rogers, Principal Social Worker, to present report]

Jenny Rogers, Principal Social Worker for Children and Adults introduced the introduced the annual report.

The Principal Social Worker advised the panel that the report sets out progress against the key priorities during 2020-2021, the response of social workers to Covid 19 and specifically the work done to support the safety and wellbeing of social workers across adults and children's teams. The presentation however would focus on the work done by children social services.

The panel were advised that a key responsibility of the Principal Social Worker is to ensure quality of practice and support continual learning and improvement, which has been important area of work during the response to the pandemic.

The panel were reassured that during this period children and families continue to be supported to a high standard by social work teams. In addition, quality assurance checks and practice weeks continued using Teams to make sure that the service continued to meet the statutory duties and improve social work practice.

The Principal Social Worker reported an increase in the number of case files rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ compared to the previous year – 70 per cent of case files were rated ‘good’ or ‘higher’ compared to 57 per cent in 2019 – 2020. In addition, there has been a reduction in the number of case audits rated as requiring improvement or inadequate which is evidence of good progress.

The Principal Social Worker commented that another priority of the role is the recruitment and retention of social workers and detailed a number of specific initiatives such as fasttrack social work programmes and social work apprenticeships, as examples aimed at maintaining a future supply of social workers to help the service meet future demand.

The Principal Social Worker commented on the national shortage of social workers and highlighted the importance of investing in such programmes. The importance of retaining existing social workers was highlighted. The Principal Social Worker commented on the progression pathway for both adults and children's social workers which was launched last year. The aim of the initiative is to support the learning and development of social workers to encourage them to stay with the Council. The feedback from social workers has been positive.

The service has worked with the Council’s Organisational Development team to develop good training opportunities for social workers which has been shown to be successful in the move from offering an in-person support to offering support online.

The Principal Social Worker advised the panel that the service as continued to hold Social Work briefings. A virtual social work conference was held earlier in the year on the theme of safeguarding, which had presentations from people with a lived experience of the service in the past.  The conference has helped to improve social practice and the feedback from social workers to the event has been positive.

The Principal Social Worker advised the panel that all Wolverhampton social workers successfully re-registered in November 2020 with Social Work England, who is the regulator for the service. The service has been able to support more social work students and recruit 15 new practice educators who study, an additional qualification in order to support social work students. This was highlighted as evidence of the commitment of the service to supporting the next generation of social workers. The Principal Social Worker commented her pride in the work done by social work teams in responding to the issues presented by the pandemic.

The Principal Social Worker briefed the panel on the range of work to promote issues of equality, diversity and inclusion across the service and commented on a video created for national Social Work Week to showcase the work of the Council in this area. The video included the voices of people who had experienced discrimination and racism. In total, 130 people took part from across the UK in the virtual event. The Principal Social commented on work done to raise the profile of social work and to showcase the work being done in Wolverhampton and future priorities for the service. A key priority of the role will be to aim to move from a good Ofsted rated authority to an outstanding this year.

The panel thanked the Principal Social Worker for report and presentation.

Cllr Adam Collinge queried the reduction in the number of Quality of Practice audit completed from 82 in 2019-20 compared 33 audits done in 2020-21 and details of plans for increasing the number done over the next 12 months.

The Principal Social Worker responded that the reduction was due to the impact of Covid as social workers adjusted to the new working arrangements. The Principal Social Worker reassured the panel and outlined plans for improving both the quality and the number of audits completed.

Cllr Adam Collinge requested more details of the action plans developed to address issues highlighted in the findings from the annual Social Work Health Check .The Principal Social explained the reason for not including details in the report and advised the panel that progress is reported separately and that action plans are monitored and reviewed. The Principal Social Worker advised that an issue highlighted in the survey was a slight increase in stress levels, which is understandable given COVID 19 situation, but is also lower than previous years. In in order to address these issues there are plans to revise the current supervision procedures and policies.

The Chair queried the extent to which the Principal Social Worker is managing the combined role for adults and children and suggested if the role would benefit from having a separate lead for children.

The Director of Children’s and Adults advised the panel that the Council took the decision to combine both roles on the basis that this would both improve standards and support the whole family approach. The Director commented that the approach has worked well.

The Director added that the Principle Social Worker has a team that supports her to meet her responsibilities. The role is also supported by other Council departments. The Director reassured the panel that if the current arrangements were found not to be working then the situation would be reviewed.

The Chair asked the Principal Social Worker to detail the key future challenges to the role and explain how she would mitigate them going forward. The Principal Social Worker highlighted the ongoing challenge presented by Covid 19 and supporting social workers, some of whom are experiencing post pandemic fatigue, who also had to adapt to the fast pace of change and rapidly changing situation. 

The Principal Social Worker commented that social work is a people profession and social workers need to be around other people to learn and improve practice. The other future challenge is how the service adapts to the ‘new normal’ and helping newly qualified social workers to gain the skills and knowledge needed who may have to work remotely. A key challenge is supporting the wellbeing of social workers in this situation.

The situation will be mitigated by the continued investment in the recruitment of social workers and being involved in regional initiatives such as the West Midlands Teaching partnerships. The service will also be working with universities to make sure courses are fit for purpose and at the end students are ready for the realities of social work. There is the ongoing challenge of the recruitment and retention of social workers, while the situation is working well now, it could change in the future.

A further future challenge is thinking about how to get feedback from social workers about what is working and not working for them. The current health check survey gives an important ‘temperature check’ but there is an acceptance of the need to do more and being more responsive to social workers.

The final challenge is moving the inspection rating from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ as there is desire to wanting the best outcome for the children and families in Wolverhampton.

Cllr Wendy Dalton reported a very positive experience in conversations with social workers about their experience of working for Wolverhampton Council.

Cllr Wendy Dalton queried if the service was having difficulties in retaining social workers and the use of agency workers. The Principal Social Worker advised the panel that there were only a small number of vacancies and agency workers are used when needed. The pool of social workers will also be increased by an initiative social worker in schools programme.

The panel welcomed the report and agreed to support the recommendations.

Resolved:

1.     The panel agreed to the endorse the work and report of the Principal Social Worker.

2.     The panel support the priorities detailed in the Principal Social Work Plan 2021-2022.

3.     The panel welcomed the commitment of the Principal Social Worker to increase the number of case audits included in the review to pre-Covid 19 levels.

4.     The panel to receive an update on progress against priorities in the work plan to a future meeting