National safe working limits for children’s social workers are needed to stop workloads driving practitioners out of the profession, the Department for Education (DfE) has been told.
The absence of national workload guidance means some council children’s social workers are working extra unpaid hours, spending insufficient time on direct work and feeling unsafe in their practice, according to social work leaders.
Following a two-year DfE-commissioned project, the national workload action group (NWAG) called on the department to urgently commission work to determine safe workload limits, which it said should be followed by a review of the sufficiency of the children’s social work workforce.
Workforce strategy and AI guidance urged
The NWAG project report, published last month, also called on the DfE to commission research on tools for workload management and to produce a national workload strategy for the wider children’s social care workforce, to support retention and career development.
In addition, it said the DfE needed to urgently produce guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in children’s social care “to provide an ethical framework for decision-making”, and in relation to which social work administrative tasks can be completed by others or automated.
In response, the DfE said it was “taking measures as a result of the group’s work”, prioritising those that aligned with its children’s social care reforms.
These included publishing materials to help employers better manage workloads on its Support for social workers platform, which highlights relevant resources and development opportunities for practitioners and leaders.
About the national workload action group
The NWAG was set up on the back of the previous government’s 2023 Stable Homes, Built on Love children’s social care reform strategy, to “consider drivers of unnecessary workload and to develop solutions so that social workers have enough time to spend working directly with children and families”. Its work continued after Labour came to power last year.
It included leaders from 11 local authorities, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), Ofsted, Social Work England, UNISON and social work education.
Its work comprised five streams: managerialism and administrative support, improving the quality of supervision, workload and caseload management, hybrid working and digital practice, and the use of AI in case recording.
The NWAG project was delivered by Research in Practice – which also produced the final report – supported by Essex County Council and King’s College London, while 22 councils tested learning materials developed as part of the project.
DfE caseload measure questioned
The DfE’s own measure of average full-time equivalent (FTE) children’s social worker caseloads has reduced year on year, falling from 17.7 in 2017 to 15.4 last year, a record low.
However, the NWAG report said there were limitations to the measure, which is calculated by dividing the number of children or young people allocated to FTE children’s social workers by the number of FTE practitioners.
These included the fact that it included newly qualified social workers (NQSWs), whose caseloads were generally capped, and practitioners holding very few cases, depressing the overall average, while it also did not account for case complexity.
A workforce under pressure
In contrast to the DfE’s measure showing declining workloads, it pointed to survey findings that showed, consistently, that social workers were reporting high workload levels. Though stressing these were based on self-selected samples, it cited:
- BASW’s 2024 annual survey, which found that 50% of social workers were unable to cope with their workload, and 65% reported not completing all their work during contracted hours.
- A 2022-23 survey of children’s social workers in London and the South East, which found 36% described their workloads as “unmanageable”.
- The DfE’s longitudinal survey of children’s social workers, which found 63% of respondents reported high overall workloads in 2022, compared with 51% in 2018, with this being a key reason for people to consider leaving social work.
Based on these findings, the NWAG concluded that “high caseloads and pressured workloads are primary reasons for social workers leaving the profession”.
‘Limited evidence’ for current workload management tools
The NWAG found a variety of approaches to workload management across local authorities, including managerial oversight, caseload targets or using data analysis to allocate work, but “limited evidence” such approaches were effective.
For example, caseload measurement tools and weighting systems could be “overly simplistic”, it said, with case numbers masking complexity and the manageability of caseloads being dependent on other factors, such as working patterns and vacancy rates.
Furthermore, in a separate research report on the issue, the group said the scope to respond to high workloads was limited “because statutory social work must continue to receive referrals”, risking burnout for individuals and retention challenges for organisations.
It said a shift was needed away from local authorities determining safe workload limits, because a lack of national guidance was leaving social workers “working unpaid extra hours, experiencing reduced time for direct work with families, and feeling unsafe in their practice at times”.
Call for national safe working limits to tackle retention
On the back of its findings, the NWAG called on the DfE to urgently commission work to define safe workload levels for social workers, which should be followed by a review of social work sufficiency to inform national workforce planning and funding for employers.
Without such a national approach, “social worker retention issues are unlikely to be resolved”, the report concluded.
It said the objective would require the development of an algorithm to calculate safe workload ranges, which the report said would be “complex”.
This needed to be supported by improvements in the data collected, with high-quality workforce statistics required to accurately monitor and measure workloads, including in relation to caseloads. Currently, regional data collection and analysis were inconsistent and national data may not provide meaningful information for policy decisions, the NWAG concluded.
It said this work should be accompanied by a national workforce strategy for social workers and the wider children’s social care sector, focused on retention and career development, including to support other practitioners into social work roles.
DfE response on workload concerns
In its response to the report, the DfE acknowledged that workload was an “urgent challenge that needs ongoing attention” and pledged to work with the sector “to explore how to better support social work leaders in managing caseloads effectively” and share good practice.
The department has posted resources on managing workloads, developed by Research in Practice as part of the NWAG project, on the DfE’s Support for social workers platform. These include case studies on workload management from four local authorities and suggested approaches for councils to take, including:
- Avoiding rigid targets and reviewing work regularly, given changing case complexity and demands.
- Providing extra workload support, with family support workers taking on less complex cases and business support staff administrative tasks, to free up social workers.
- Providing reflective supervision to help social workers manage workloads, discuss challenges and develop strategies to support wellbeing.
The DfE said it was also planning to collect employment data on local authority employed family help practitioners, to help identify workload issues.
However, it did not address the NWAG’s calls for safe working limits and a national workforce strategy.
AI ‘offers potential but raises ethical concerns’
In relation to the use of AI in case recording, the NWAG found that it could reduce unnecessary workloads, including through transcription software for recording conversations, virtual assistants to schedule meetings and tools to search, retrieve and analyse information from case records.
It also had the potential to “radically transform case recording” by enabling children and families to upload content and access information.
However, the report raised concerns about AI tools being biased, resulting in discriminatory practices, the privacy of children and families being undermined, practitioners being deskilled and the technology’s reliance on high-cost digital devices and internet services potentially disadvantaging poorer areas.
It said that the DfE should urgently produce guidance on the use of AI in children’s social care, in partnership with sector bodies, to provide an ethical framework for decision making. This should help guard against improper use of child and family data and ensure key professional tasks continued to be undertaken by social workers, it added.
Children’s social care digital centre of excellence to be established
In response, the DfE highlighted AI’s potential to reduce administrative burdens on social workers and improve the quality and timeliness of decision making, but said it was committed to ensuring its use was “ethical, evidence-informed and aligned with the needs of the workforce and the children they serve”.
To support this and build on the NWAG’s recommendations, it said it was setting up a children’s social care data and digital centre of excellence. This would “engage with local authorities to gather robust, evidence-based insights into the use of AI in children’s social care and design support to help them use the technology effectively”, it added.
The department said that the effective and ethical use of AI was underpinned by high-quality data that could be exchanged between systems and common standards, and that its data standards programme for children’s social care was addressing this.
Article by Community Care
