Sickness and low university success rates will put social services under continued pressure

Ted Peskett Local Democracy Reporter

Low success rates at universities will put social social services in Cardiff under continued pressure this year, according to a council official.

Cardiff Council operational manager for assessment and care planning, Sarah Skuse, presented members of the local authority’s children and young people scrutiny committee meeting with an end of year performance report for children’s services on Tuesday, September 10.

The report states that progress is being made in improving children’s services, but it continues to face significant pressure.

“There are still lots of challenges for us,” said Ms Skuse.

“The two local universities in Cardiff who offer the social work course are reporting to us that they have had very low success rates… this year and we have seen this come through with our recruitment.

“This year will be another fairly challenging year for us workforce wise, but we have a really strong workforce of non social-work qualified staff who are really coming through now.”

Demand

Cardiff Council data shows that the percentage of social worker vacancies at the local authority was 15.8% this year.

This was a decrease compared to the end of 2022/23 when the percentage of social worker vacancies was 27.3%.

However, demand has increased with referrals to the multi agency safeguarding hub going from 25,323 in 2022/23 to 28,460 in 2023/24.

Ms Skuse said: “This will be the last year I think that we have this pressure because as of next summer our students that we have supported through qualification will be qualifying and we have significant numbers coming through next year.”

The number of days lost due to sickness for children’s services employees was less this year compared to last year, but below the target that the council set itself.

Council data shows 12.42 sickness days were lost per person, with the target being 11.8. However, the number of days lost per person in 2023/24 was less than the two previous years.

Cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Ash Lister, said some of the sickness leave is related to long term illness and told members that staff are working in a very stressful environment.

Ms Skuse said: “Taking on board the vacancy rate and the agency staff that we were reliant on previously, the one thing about agency staff is you don’t see them when they go sick. They are not against your sickness stats.

“For the very first time, really, we are seeing Cardiff with a permanent staffing group and I think we are still finding out [where] our level of sickness is going to sit.

“It is a mixture, so we do still have viruses taking people out for a few days. There are some challenges around some longer term sickness.

“What we have seen recently, I have currently got two members of staff off with sickness related to incidents that have happened at work.”

The council officer went on to add: “We do track sickness frequently. We challenge any longer term sickness and work with our workforce to get them back into [work] as soon as possible.”