Children's social work workforce
Case reference FOI2022/00250
Published 1 April 2022
Request
Q1. What was your staff turnover rate for registered social workers working in child protection or with children in need in each of the following years? (Where staff turnover is calculated as the headcount of full-time equivalent (FTE) registered social workers leaving in the year divided by the headcount of FTE registered social workers in post at 1 January) i) 2017 ii) 2018 iii) 2019 iv) 2020 v) 2021
Q2. What was your staff turnover rate for social work assistants working in child protection or with children in need in each of the following years? (Where staff turnover rate is calculated as the headcount of full-time equivalent (FTE) social work assistants leaving in the year divided by the headcount of FTE social work assistants in post at 1 January) i) 2017 ii) 2018 iii) 2019 iv) 2020 v) 2021
Q3. In your authority's children's services department, what percentage of your registered social worker headcount was defined as newly qualified on 1 January in the following years? i) 2018 ii) 2019 iii) 2020 iv) 2021 v) 2022
Q4. In your authority's children's services department, how many full time equivalent registered social workers were in post on 1 January in each of the following years? i) 2018 ii) 2019 iii) 2020 iv) 2021 v) 2022
Q5. In your authority's children's services department, how many full time equivalent agency staff were you employing as social workers on 1 January in each of the following years? i) 2018 ii) 2019 iii) 2020 iv) 2021 v) 2022
Q6. Do you have a shortage of social workers in your authority's children's services department? If yes, how many full time equivalent social worker vacancies were recorded on your system as of 1 January 2022?
Q7. What was the total amount spent by your authority's children's services department on agency social workers in each of the following years: i) 2017 ii) 2018 iii) 2019 iv) 2020 v) 2021
Response
Q1. Please note that these figures do not include agency workers.
2017 - 36.14%
2018 - 21.5%
2019 - 13.03%
2020 - 40.8%
2021 - 20.64%
Q2. Herefordshire Council do not have a role of Social Worker Assistant.
Q3. Data prior to 2020 is not available. However, please see the figures for 2021 and 2022 below:
2021 - 26.99% of social workers were newly qualified
2022 - 32.93% of social workers were newly qualified
Q4. Please note that these figures do not include agency workers.
2018 - 60.46
2019 - 53
2020 - 59.31
2021 - 59.12
2022 - 54.49
Q5. The service area have advised that they do not record agency workers as full time equivalent, however, they can provide the headcount.
2018 - 6
2019 - 21
2020 - 13
2021 - 19
2022 - 20
Q6. 12.6 full time equivalent vacancies (unfilled posts)
Q7.
2017 - £263,105.45
2018 - £471,693.25
2019 - £1,006,680.00
2020 - £1,438,817.93
2021 - £1,185,379.89
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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