Social workers not confident in DfE project to cut their workloads, poll finds

Social workers have little faith in a Department for Education’s (DfE) project to cut their workloads, a Community Care poll has found.

Three-quarters said they did not believe resources produced by the national workload action group (NWAG) would result in a reduction in the burdens on children’s practitioners.

The NWAG, a group of sector leaders, is working with social workers and managers from 22 councils to develop and test resources designed to cut workloads, in areas including caseload management, supervision, cutting bureaucracy and social workers’ working environment.

The group was set up last year as part of the DfE’s children’s social care reforms, with a mission to “identify unnecessary workload pressures…and recommend solutions to address them”.

However, a recent Community Care poll that amassed 817 votes found that the majority of practitioners (97%) did not feel confident that the NWAG’s work would reduce workloads.

Of those, 76% were “not at all” confident and 21% “not so much”. Only 3% believed that the action group’s work might succeed in curbing workloads.

‘Spend the money on recruitment.’

Comments under the related article showed social workers calling for the DfE to instead turn its resources to addressing social worker shortages – the prime reason behind workloads, according to practitioners.

“The problem is a lack of social workers due to increased demand, ongoing cuts in services and a reliance on projects that are not sustained due to lack of funding,” said Tom.

“Reducing bureaucracy and releasing time are by-words for, ‘We need you to work harder with no more money…but we will waste a massive amount of money, time and resources making it look like we are doing things’. After 25 years as a qualified senior social worker, I am opting out.”

Gerald commented on “the irony of asking social workers to take on additional work to look at how to reduce workloads”. 

“Spend the money on recruitment, on training competent managers, skill up supervisors to listen rather than offload their anxieties about waiting times onto us. It really isn’t that complicated,” he added.

“I’ve just bet a colleague that if there is just one new recommendation that comes from this rather than the rehashing of what social workers have said for years, I’ll buy her cat a new toy. Fully confident my money is safe.”

‘Workforce strategy, not a workload strategy’

Another social worker asked for a “workforce strategy” instead of a workload one.

“Would it not be more helpful to do the unthinkable and properly consider that there aren’t enough social workers and the DfE and the Department of Health and Social Care have no coherent national social work strategy? It is that, not other issues, that is causing workload issues,” they said.

“The workload strategy that some feel is needed here is a workforce strategy, coupled with a commitment to help those in society who have been disenfranchised, besmirched and castigated as the problem.”