Social worker caseloads 'affecting children in care'

Children in the care of Nottingham City Council are being affected by social workers’ high workloads, a report has found.

The Labour-run authority'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 this month.

The report was discussed during the city council's children and young people scrutiny committee meeting on Wednesday.

Ofsted inspector Margaret Burke praised the work environment and said staff enjoyed working for the council but noted some workers still had 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 said.

“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.”

According to Ms Burke, new information is sometimes not carefully evaluated in the context of the child’s history, and requests for help are often closed without any further intervention or assessment.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the council anticipated the next monitoring visit would take place before the end of the year.

Jill Colbert 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 of adult social care and health in November.

Ailsa Barr, interim corporate director for children and education services, said "clear and tangible progress" has been made.

"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," she said.

“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."

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