Report urges overhaul of Welsh social services

Social services in Wales need an urgent relaunch to deal with high staff-vacancy and turnover rates, a major new report has recommended today.

A two-year multi-agency review of social work in the principality, published today, has concluded that local authorities need to act quickly in the face of serious staff shortages and a growing need for social workers.

The study, Social Work in Wales: A Profession to Value, included contributions from more than a thousand social workers and all 22 councils in Wales. It highlighted a need for nearly 12% more social workers over the next three years while there was a current shortfall of 14.8% and a turnover of 15 per cent.

In children's services the vacancy rate is worse with an 18.6% shortfall.

The report's authors, a team led by the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) Cymru, said due to the fact that from April 2005 all social workers have had to be registered, this was an opportunity to re-launch the profession.

Wales has been badly affected by poor social work standards in recent years with several inspection reports containing damning assessments of councils' social services departments.

The Waterhouse report into serial abuse at care homes in north Wales, published in 2000, found serious failings by social services.

Today's report also calls on social workers to accept personal responsibility for behaving like "true professionals".

Local authorities should ditch competitive incentives they use to fight over the limited pool of social workers, and instead work together to improve recruitment rates in Wales, the report recommended.

Tony Garthwaite, the ADSS Cymru lead workforce spokesman, said :"We believe it [the report] will be a major contribution to what must now be a national effort to solve the recruitment and retention problems we are facing."

He said action was "urgently needed" to protect service users.

Among other recommendations from the group, which includes the Welsh Local Government Association, Unison, the British Association of Social Workers and the Care Council for Wales, were improved pay and conditions for social workers, and better training for social workers who become managers.