Social workers could be recruited from Hong Kong to ease an ongoing shortage in Carmarthenshire. Councillors were told that the social worker course in the former British colony was delivered in English and recognised in Wales.
The overseas option has underlined how difficult Carmarthenshire Council is finding it to employ qualified and experienced staff. Addressing a meeting of the education and children scrutiny committee, service manager Noreen Jackman said: "Social worker vacancies is a problem nationwide. And it is a crisis. The Welsh Government are looking at how they can support local authorities with it."
Ms Jackman co-authored a report which said staffing pressures combined with a rising number of referrals to children's services could result in more child protection cases and more young people taken into care. The impact of staff shortages and increasing workload on existing employees, it said, was a concern.
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Ms Jackman said there were 11 social worker vacancies, despite the offer of a market supplement and retention payment.
"We are also looking at recruiting social workers from Hong Kong," she said. "We are in the process of just about being able to advertise out there now." Ms Jackman said social worker trainees had been appointed and that the council had good relationships with local universities - the source of potential recruits. "We provide excellent supervision and training," she said.
Ms Jackman said many recruits stayed on for years in Carmarthenshire having joined, but that it was the case that social worker pay was lower in the county than many other council areas. You can get more weather and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
The first point of contact for anyone worried about a child is the council's central referral team. Around a quarter of these contacts cross a concern threshold and become a referral - in other words a statutory responsibility. The team dealt with 9,498 contacts in 2020-21, referring 1,854 of them for statutory work. The figure the previous year was 8,728. Around a third of the contacts come from Dyfed-Powys Police.
The numbers have increased again. Between April and December, 2021 there were 8,390 contacts. Domestic incident reports in Carmarthenshire have also risen - from 1,814 in 2019-20 to 2,368 in 2020-21.
Ms Jackman said the number of young people on the child protection register was up from 71 to 91, while looked-after children numbers had increased from 149 to 161. Part of the reason for this, she said, was that social workers were out in the field more than they had been during Covid and therefore identifying concerns while on visits.
The report said there were business support as well as social worker vacancies in children's services. Ms Jackman said some posts had been advertised several times and that agency workers had been brought in for the first time in a decade. Sunday working and overtime pay had been authorised to keep on top of the situation and reduce backlogs. Staff absences due to Covid and other issues had been feeding into the overall pressures.
Cllr Kim Broom described the report as "a challenging read", and said her main concern was a child at risk being missed in the system. She also said social worker pay rates should be looked at to try to boost recruitment. Ms Jackman said she was confident that nothing was being missed or overlooked by the central referral team, and that child protection matters were prioritised. She added that a new pay structure was being developed which would, if approved, increase social worker pay - particularly for more experienced ones.
Co-opted committee member Anthony Enoch, who is not a councillor, said it was reassuring to hear of the measures being taken to recruit staff. But, citing his background in policing, he said: "I see risk all over this report."
Committee chairman, Cllr Darren Price, said the competition between councils to attract social workers had been going on for years. In response, Gareth Morgans, director of education and children’s services, said a working group had been assessing this "for quite some time", and that it was "an urgent matter" to solve.
Mr Morgans added that social work, like teaching, was a very difficult job and that employees did leave. "Social workers in Carmarthenshire deal with very complex things," he said.
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