Government quizzes adult social workers on working conditions
The government is seeking social workers’ views on their working conditions as part of the first national survey of the adult social care workforce in England.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it would use the results of the research to inform policy on recruitment, retention and workforce development.
The survey, which is being run by Skills for Care and the University of Kent, covers issues including pay, working hours and training. It will run for 11 weeks and the DHSC is seeking the views of 3,000 staff overall – roughly 0.2% of the 1.635m people working in the sector across England.
Uncompetitive pay and high vacancies
The research comes amid widespread pressures on the adult social care workforce driven by, among other factors, pay rates for care staff that have become increasingly uncompetitive with comparable sectors, such as retail and hospitality, as well as with the NHS.
For local authority adult social workers specifically, vacancy rates rose from 7.5% to 11.6% from 2020-22, with turnover increasing from 13.6% to 17.1% over the same period.
The government is spending £250m over the next two years on developing the workforce – chiefly through increasing access to training and qualifications – but this is half the £500m it originally pledged, with promised actions to enhance wellbeing, track workforce racial inequalities and invest in new routes into social work dropped.
However, it has shifted £600m originally destined for social care reform into tackling more immediate pressures on services up to 2025, with the funding principally designed to tackle workforce gaps, including by raising pay.
‘I want social care to be a long-term career choice’ – chief nurse
Launching the survey, chief nurse for adult social care Deborah Sturdy said: “To build a social care workforce fit for the future, we need to listen to current staff members, whose hard work and dedication is the cornerstone of the care sector.
“I don’t want care work to just be a job, I want it to be a long-term career choice. This survey will expand our knowledge of what is working well for staff as well as, crucially, where additional support can be provided to keep the skilled professionals we already have and bring more people into care roles.”