Nottingham children in care 'impacted by social workers' workloads', watchdog says
Some children in the care of Nottingham City Council are being impacted by social workers’ high workloads, a watchdog says. The Labour-run council’s children’s services were rated ‘inadequate’ in July 2022 by the sector’s watchdog, Ofsted.
It has been conducting a series of monitoring visits ever since, and its report detailing the findings from the fifth visit was published in September. Margaret Burke, His Majesty’s Inspector for Ofsted, praised the work environment and said staff enjoy working for the council, but she notes some workers still have high workloads.
“While caseload numbers in the duty service are reducing, there are still some social workers in the service with high workloads,” her report says.
“Workers and managers attempt to juggle and balance continuing workload pressures. At times, this has impacted on a small number of children, affecting the quality and timeliness of work with them.”
The report from the monitoring visit further highlights that some children are the subject of repeated requests for support through contacts, referrals and assessments. According to Ms Burke, new information is sometimes not carefully evaluated in the context of the child’s history and the request for help is often closed without any further intervention or assessment.
The report was discussed during a Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday (September 11). Ailsa Barr, Interim Corporate Director for Children and Education Services, said: “Some clear and tangible progress has been made and there’s been investment in posts to increase our frontline management capacity which has helped to manage workload and demand, and increase management oversight which was one of the concerns Ofsted had.
“There has also been a reduction in caseloads from our staff and improvement of our staff morale. Our workforce tells Ofsted they feel supported by managers and feel the impact of reduction in caseloads and that is enabling them to deliver better quality practice.
“Staff are, broadly speaking, developing stronger, meaningful relationships with children and young people they work with and know them well.”
However Ms Barr said she is “extremely concerned” about the children and young people who continue to experience too many changes in their social worker, which is a national problem. Further work is also needed to ensure children’s services receive information in a timely manner, and that assessments and any potential intervention is provided without delay.
The authority has now made significant changes to its leadership structure to better prioritise both adults and children’s services. Jill Colbert OBE has been appointed as the new Corporate Director for Children and Education Services and will start at the end of September, while Vicky Murphy will take up the role of Corporate Director Adult Social Care and Health in November.
Ms Colbert will be joining the council from her current role of chief executive of Together for Children, the operating company that delivers all children’s services for Sunderland City Council. In its latest report, Ofsted said the separation of adults and children’s services has “enabled greater energy to be focused on developing services for children”.
The council is anticipating the next monitoring visit before the end of the year.