Agenda item

This report provides the Committee with an update on activity in relation to the recruitment and retention of children and young people social workers.

The Committee received a report from the Corporate Director for Children and Young People (CYP) that provided the Committee with an update on the challenges faced in the recruitment and retention of social workers. The General Purposes Committee were asked to agree the continuation and extension of the previously approved recruitment and retention initiative packages (previously approved by the General Purposes Committee in October 2018) to support the department in employing permanent social workers to ease the financial pressures of sourcing agency staff and to support a stable workforce in CYP.

In presenting the report Councillor Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) supported by Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director for Children and Young People) detailed the current position regarding social work staff recruitment and retention within the department, with particular reference to current challenges and pressures within the Looked After Children and Permanency (LAC & Permanency) Service, along with the proposed approach outlined in order to address the issues identified.

Whilst noting that the availability of suitably qualified Children’s Social Work staff remained a national issue, members were advised that the package of measures outlined in the report had been designed to enable Brent to continue competing in what remained an increasingly competitive market for qualified and experienced social work staff.  The impact and effectiveness of the measures outlined would also be subject to further review early in 2023, in order for feedback to be shared at a future General Purposes Committee meeting.

In welcoming the report, members acknowledged the competitive environment across London in the recruitment and retention of social workers, noting the value in seeing the process through to achieve an appropriately qualified sustainable workforce within Children and Young People’s services in order to continue supporting positive outcomes for service users.  Whilst keen to support the work in developing a London wide approach members were also aware of the importance in Brent exhausting all options available to overcome the social work recruitment challenges and on this basis the Committee RESOLVED:

(1)         That the Committee agree to extend the two recruitment and retention initiatives, which were agreed for the most hard to recruit teams in the Localities Service, to six Care Planning Teams in the Looked After Children and Permanency Service as follows:

·             To increase the one-off payment to newly recruited permanent social work staff on grades PO1 – PO7 from £5,000 to £7,500, on satisfactory completion of probationary period and repayable where an employee leaves the council’s employment within 12 months of receiving the payment. (Currently, in the Care Planning Teams in the Looked After Children and Permanency Service the one-off payment is only made to social work staff in grades PO3 to PO7).

·             To increase retention payments for all qualified social work staff on grades PO1 to PO7 from £1,200 to £4,500 per annum (currently the retention payment is made to social work staff in grades PO3 to PO7)

(2)    That the Committee agrees to increase the maximum amount payable to provide relocation package support to key social work qualified posts from £5,000 to £6,000 in line with cost of living increases.

(3)      That continued discretion is provided to the department in how recruitment and retention payments are offered across the department with a continued focus on hard to recruit posts