JOANS COLUMN (BRANCH EQUALITIES OFFICER)

On the seventh anniversary of the tragic death of child abuse victim Victoria Climbie, the UK’s largest union UNISON has called on the Government and local councils to urgently resolve the very same issues which contributed to the terrible case.

UNISON National Secretary for Local Government Heather Wakefield said:“We remain concerned that the overwhelming workload, recruitment and retention problems, and also a high dependence on agency staff, has not improved the situation in many areas.

“The Government’s recent review of the social care workforce, ‘Options for Excellence’, noted that stress caused by poor management and high caseloads continues to push people to leave the sector.”

UNISON, which represents some 300,000 social care services workers, is gravely concerned that some 69 per cent of councils in England have difficulty recruiting sufficient children’s social workers (alarmingly up from 48 per cent in 2001). Moreover half of councils have difficulties retaining these staff (up from 30 per cent in 2001).

Just as worrying is that the vacancy rate for children’s social work posts has not improved – 12 per cent of all posts are still vacant, and annual turnover of staff is 11 per cent, double that of the wider economy.

There is also a high level of use of agency staff, in social care. Overall six per cent of all social care staff are agency staff and that rises to a staggering 21 per cent in London. A third of the agency staff working in social care are deployed to fill children’s social work posts.

The death of Victoria Climbie, killed aged eight in 2000, led to an inquiry chaired by Lord Laming, which made more than a hundred recommendations. Lord Laming’s inquiry found that many workers involved in the case admitted to being overwhelmed by workloads and downtrodden by low pay, which contributed to poor communications between and inside different public authorities

NB: TAKEN FROM APRIL ISSUE OF BRANCH NEWSLETTER