A local authority involved in the care of Logan Mwangi, the five-year-old boy murdered by his mother, her partner and his stepson, spent more than £1m on agency social workers in the year the child was killed, it has emerged.
Bridgend county borough council in south Wales spent £1.1m on agency social workers in 2021/22 compared with £166,000 the year before. So far in this financial year it has spent more than £800,000.
The way social workers and other professionals handled Logan’s case in the months leading up to his death in July 2021 is being probed as part of a child practice review into the tragedy, which is expected to publish its findings this autumn.
The Welsh Tories, who obtained the figures, said they did not know if staffing problems were an issue but said the council’s dependence on agency workers was very worrying.
Logan’s stepfather, John Cole, and mother, Angharad Williamson, were jailed for at least 29 and 28 years respectively earlier this year. Cole’s teenage stepson, Craig Mulligan, was detained for a minimum of 15 years.
Their trial at Cardiff crown court heard that in the months before Logan was killed he largely vanished from the sight of authorities, with his family using the Covid pandemic as an excuse for locking him away in the “dungeon” of his small, dark bedroom.
It also emerged that Mulligan, who had been in local authority care, was moved into the family home five days before the killing, in a decision likened by prosecutors to throwing a lit match into a powder keg. The jury heard that a foster family who had looked after Mulligan had allegedly warned a social worker that he had threatened to kill Logan, but claimed their fears were brushed aside. The social worker denied being told of these threats.
The Tory shadow minister for social services, Gareth Davies, said: “We’ve known about understaffing in Wales’s social services departments for a long while now.
“While we don’t know whether it contributed to the failings that left Logan in an unsafe environment, the council’s dependence on agency workers is very worrying and does not inspire confidence.
“Children need a strong presence from social services, but this cannot happen when councils are so dependent on agency staff because permanent placements are what lead to better outcomes as someone can handle a case consistently that way. I think our findings serve to support our calls for a Wales-wide review of social services.”
A Bridgend council spokesperson said: “It is normal practice for local authorities who experience difficulty in sourcing and retaining social care staff to be able to engage agency workers in order to meet statutory responsibilities for keeping adults and children safe.
“The issue of social worker recruitment is an ongoing national concern affecting many councils across the UK which has already resulted in a major joint recruitment drive from Welsh government and Social Care Wales.”
A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We have set out an ambitious programme for reform to transform children’s services in Wales and have been clear that now is the time for action and not further review.
“We recently announced a £10m package of support for social work students as part of our work to recruit more social workers. We are working with the sector to improve recruitment and retention of social workers.”
