BASW raises social work workforce issues with government

Ms Jameson agreed to table the questions proposed by BASW England following a recent meeting to discuss our manifesto for social work.

The questions to the Department for Health and Social Care are therefore based on key asks within our manifesto for better support and resourcing for the social work workforce in England.* The questions highlight the Top Tips for Government from the BASW England 80:20 campaign about what needs to change to make relationship based social work a reality.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the administrative burden on social workers.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will implement a national workforce strategy for social work developed in partnership with the sector.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of social workers; and what plans he has for a national social work recruitment campaign.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his department has made an assessment of the potential merits of ensuring social workers have more time for relationship-based work.

The questions are also very timely given that the government has outlined plans to regulate the use of agency staff in local authority children’s services through its Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. We’re therefore interested to know what plans the government has to invest in the social work profession, both in children’s services and more widely, with the aim of addressing existing shortages in permanent roles.

In response, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Stephen Kinnock highlighted the Support for Social Workers virtual hub launched by the government and explained that they are also considering a report from the National Workload Action Group, who are providing insights and solutions for reducing unnecessary workloads for social workers in child social care.

However, on the challenges around recruitment and retention he added that there are no plans for a national social work recruitment campaign at this time. There was also no recognition of the need for a social work specific national workforce strategy.

BASW will continue to apply pressure on the government to go further and faster to address workload, recruitment and retention challenges weighing heavily on the social work sector through our ongoing engagement with MPs.

Social workers can also write to their own MPs to add their voice to our calls using the free suite of BASW England 80:20 campaign pack resources.

80:20 in Practice: Share your ideas and examples

To make it easy for people to share examples of how they have put the Top Tips into practice, we have set up an MS Form. Please do share the link to the form with any colleagues who you think also have good examples to share.