Health, Wellbeing and Local Government Committee
Committee Inquiry into Health and Social Care Workforce Planning - Evidence from the Care Council for Wales
1. Introduction
1.1 The Care Council for Wales (Care Council), an Assembly Government Sponsored Body (AGSB), was established on 1 October 2001 under the Care Standards Act 2000 to promote high standards of conduct and practice among social care workers and high standards in their training.
1.2 The role of the Care Council is to:
register the Social Care Workforce in Wales;
regulate the Conduct and Fitness to Practice of the Workforce;
set and regulate the standard of training required for social workers at qualifying and post qualifying levels;
monitor the quality of social work education in Wales; and
promote and encourage training for the wider social care workforce.
1.3 The Care Council also delivers the Sector Skills Council (SSC) remit for the social care sector (including early years) in Wales as part of a four country alliance, Skills for Care and Development. SSC’s are intended by government to drive up the skills and productivity of each employment area. Each SSC agrees sector priorities and targets with its employers and partners to address four key goals:
reducing skills gaps and shortages;
improving productivity, business and public service performance;
increasing opportunities to boost the skills and productivity of everyone in the sector's workforce, including action on equal opportunities;
improving learning supply, including apprenticeships, higher education and National Occupational Standards (NOS).
1.4 The main focus of our SSC work is to produce a Workforce Development Strategy (Sector Skills Agreement (SSA)) for the social care sector in Wales through which employers, government, funding agencies, economic development agencies and learning institutions agree what actions will be taken to make sure social care across Wales has the right people with the right skills to deliver the services.
1.5 The Care Council is the National Assembly for Wales’ (Assembly) primary partner in delivering its workforce improvement agenda and in improving standards and protection for social care service users and their carers. It is able to provide information and advice about the workforce and about training and development which contributes to the development of Assembly policy and informs resource planning and budget setting.
2. Workforce Issues in Social Care Services in Wales
2.1 About 70,000 people are employed in social care, which is about 5% of the total workforce in Wales. People are employed in a range of roles, with the majority of staff providing direct care in domiciliary, residential or day care settings. The Care Council produced 'Themes and Trends’ to draw together the intelligence currently available about the social care workforce in Wales and identify some of the gaps. This document (Appendix 1) gives an overview of the position in Wales at the time of publication. We are currently updating this information as part of our cycle of commitments to produce a biennial report drawing together the intelligence on the social care workforce.
2.2 Some of the key messages are that approximately 84% of the workforce are women. 30% of the social care workforce are aged 50 or over and with only 10% of the workforce under the age of 25, although this varies from area to area. A high percentage work part time and many have other jobs. 15% of local authority social care staff were reported to be Welsh speaking in 2004/5 compared with an estimated 21% of the Welsh population with 19% of sector employers reporting the Welsh language as a skills gap in 2005. Analysis of the Care Council register of individuals with a social work qualification suggests that approximately 3% are from a black or minority ethnic group compared to 2.6% of the working age population.
2.3 7% of the workforce are qualified social workers. Most registered qualified social workers work in local authorities. Other agencies such as the voluntary sector, regulatory bodies and government bodies employ staff who hold a social work qualification. Social care workers work across the private and voluntary sectors and local authorities, the mixed economy of care has meant an increasing proportion being employed by private or voluntary organisations. Traditionally much of this workforce have been unqualified. However there has been a significant increase in the number of qualified staff over the past few years with 44% of social services social care workers now holding the recommended qualifications. Information from the Care and Social Services Inspectorate for Wales (CCSIW) (based on the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales (CSIW) reports) indicates that qualifications attainment has improved across the piece in services for adults but that progress has not been as good in residential care for children.
2.4 It is clear that the size of the workforce has not kept pace with the increase in the demand for services. The sector has been dealing with recruitment and retention difficulties. In local authorities this has been particularly in child care services. Whilst there have been reported recruitment and retention challenges also across direct care services particularly in the private sector. There are a range of reasons for the recruitment and retention challenges facing the sector, from low pay, lack of support and management, transport, poor image, and a lack of clear career progression.
3. Achievements since the Establishment of the Care Council
3.1 Since being established in 2001, the Care Council has put in place a framework of standards and initiatives for the social care workforce in Wales wherever they work. These include;
The first ever Codes of Practice for Social Care Workers and Social Care Employers;
An Induction Framework for social care workers;
NOS including NOS developed jointly with the National Health Service (NHS);
Framework of qualifications for all social care workers in the sector
A degree in social work implemented through 8 programmes involving all of the 22 local authorities;
Registration of social workers and social work students on a statutory footing;
Regulations making it a requirement for staff and managers in residential children’s homes to register with the Council; and
Conduct process to address misconduct of registered social care workers working through panels made up of lay individuals and social care workers.
3.2 Action has been taken to improve the recruitment to the sector through;
Careers information and promotional materials aimed at those wishing to work in or progress in social care;
Incentive to train funding scheme for social work students; and
Four Regional Partnerships established to co-ordinate workforce development in social care across the local authority, voluntary and private sector established.
3.3 Action has been taken to strengthen the workforce information for the sector and this is addressed in Section 6 of this report.
3.4 Action has also been taken to ensure there is synergy between the learning and qualifications needs of the sector and what is provided by the colleges and the training providers. Two examples of these are;
National Group of employers and colleges working with the Care Council and government to take a strategic view on the numbers of social workers needed to be retained, the quality of the training, and future needs; and
The joint action plan developed with the Department of Education, Culture and the Welsh Language (DECWL) to address the barriers to learning and qualifications attainment identified by social care employers.
4. Social Work Training
4.1 The degree in social work has been implemented since 2004. It is;
based on NOS so that there is more consistency and a strengthened curriculum;
has flexible routes;
has transferability of qualification across the UK;
is supported with an incentive to train funding for students;
has stronger practice learning opportunities and students better enabled to integrate theory into their practice;
requires employers to be at the centre of training determining content and numbers needing to be trained; and
has a model for the first year in employment to improve retention and effectiveness.
4.2 There are 8 social work training programmes and all of the 22 local authority social services departments are in partnership with at least one Higher Education Institute (HEI). There is also a national group of employers and colleges working with the Care Council and government taking a strategic view on the numbers needed to be trained, the quality of the training and future needs.
4.3 The Care Council is working with the social work training partnerships and the government through the National Strategic Partnership to make sure:
training programmes respond to the changing role of qualified social workers, and new roles which may emerge;
employers are able to deliver the quantity and quality of Practice Learning necessary to meet the standards and prepare students for competent social work practice;
the Degree reflects policy initiatives, outcomes of inspection reports and trends emerging from Care Council conduct cases;
the intake number of social work students is sufficient to meet the workforce needs of the sector;
flexible access to social work training is sufficient to maximise participation and access across different communities in Wales;
there is analysed information on the work choices of those who qualify to gain understanding of how students use their qualification i.e. how many come into Social Work, how many stay, why do some leave the profession, what do we need to do differently to reduce 'wastage’ This is key if retention issues which are of general concern for employers are to be addressed; and
that service users and carers are fully involved in the selection, teaching, assessment and quality assurance of the Degree Programmes Standards for Service Users/Carer Involvement in social work training.
4.4 An analysis of social work training undertaken by the Care Council (Appendix 2) suggests that steady progress is being made in implementing the degree qualification. It is particularly positive to note the substantial demand for social work training and the continued significant levels of employer investment in the qualification. There have been small increases in the number of Welsh speaking students and male students in 2006/07 as well as an increase in the number of students with disability.
4.5 The Care Council has led work in 2006 on the provision of more flexible routes to training and on increasing the number of bilingual students to meet workforce needs. These initiatives will be taken forward in 2007 along with new projects on the strategic review of practice learning, developing the sector’s approach to workforce planning, commencing a longitudinal study of the employment choices of those qualifying and best practice guidance for black and minority ethnic students.
5. Key Challenges
5.1 The current workforce challenges which face the sector can be summarised as follows;
the increase demands on social care services and the changing patterns of service means that there is need for more staff and a change in the skill mix required. For example more demand for and a different role for domiciliary care workers; an emphasis on assessment and care management and implications for the skill mix within social work teams;
the importance of partnership working between the commissioners of services and the providers of services so that the workforce needs are understood and addressed;
direct care roles not attractive career option for younger people;
heavy reliance on female, part time workers may not be as viable in the future;
there is a need for retention strategies so that all parts of the sector are able to retain skilled and qualified staff;
lack of clear career pathways for qualified social work practitioners and also social care practitioners;
there is a reported increase in dependency on the migrant workforce in direct care services and the need for employers to identify and address any additional skills and knowledge gaps;
the need for a leadership and management strategy for the sector;
the need to ensure language planning is addressed as part of service planning and workforce planning so that employer, commissioners and regulators can be confident that language sensitivity and choice is evidenced;
increase in the provision of Welsh language learning opportunities;
there is a need to establish more flexible funding arrangements to improve access to learning and qualifications;
service pressures mitigate against investment in continued professional development for qualified social workers;
more work is needed to clarify the workforce data which needs to be held by employers and by commissioners so that there is consistency and robustness; and
there is a need to further explore the learning needs and career pathways of workers who operate across professional boundaries such as Health, Education, Justice and Housing, and for more specialist workers.
6. Workforce Planning
6.1 The primary responsibility for workforce planning lies with the employers of social care workers and also with the commissioners of services. This has been set out in the Social Services Inspectorate for Wales (SSIW) document 'Planning for Caring’. CSSIW, as part of its service improvement and development role, has led the development of a strategic framework within which local and regional partnerships can secure long-term improvements through better and more targeted, management development and workforce planning. This framework builds upon the responsibility of local authorities as commissioners and providers of services. This requires them to take the lead responsibility in the whole sector for management, development and workforce planning. It has the following key messages;
the social care sector in Wales is one sector with one workforce;
high quality services can only be achieved through collaboration, not competition; and
the development of the workforce must become an integral part of the sector’s core business.
6.2 A key development to assist the process of developing the social care workforce has been the establishment of the local and regional workforce development partnerships which are explicitly aimed at involving the range of sectoral interests in issues related to the social care workforce. The contribution of, and future direction for the partnerships is now to be assessed to enable an assessment to be made of their potential contribution to future workforce issues.
6.3 As outlined in the introduction to this paper the Care Council has taken action to strengthen the workforce information across the sector. The main developments include;
development of a workforce information template for data on the social care workforce;
publication of Themes and Trends the first of a biennial series of reports on the social care workforce;
annual analysis of Social Work training data;
study on international recruitment to assess the extent of such recruitment and issues arising;
in collaboration with DECWL an assessment of learning needs and current learning supply in Wales;
initiated a longitudinal study of social work graduates to map career pathways;
work with social worker employers on a model to improve planning of numbers required for social work training; and
regular analysis of registration data to monitor trends in social worker and social work students in Wales
6.4 Further work on improving the availability of workforce information is to be included in the 'Fulfilled Lives, Supportive Communities’ Workforce Action Plan. There is currently a significant gap in information particularly from the independent sector. Options by which this can be addressed include;
Creating of minimum data set of annual returns but there are likely to continue to be questions about the comprehensiveness and comparability of such data.
One-off surveys of particular employment groups although this will be partial and only provide current information on particular groups at one time.
Registration data now useful for analysing social work trends and should registration of social care workers become mandatory workforce information would be a by-product.
6.5 While there has been significant progress made in enhancing the workforce planning undertaken within social care there remain key areas to be addressed. These include further understanding of labour market trends at the local, regional and national levels. The work done in relation to 'Social Work in Wales: A Profession to Value’ highlighted some of the key factors in relation to recruitment and retention of social workers but further work needs to be done in addressing the issues identified and also developing a deeper understanding of the issues influencing social care worker recruitment and retention.
7. Fulfilled Lives, Supportive Communities - Workforce Action Plan
7.1 The Assembly has asked the Care Council to co-ordinate the development of a Workforce Action Plan for to support the delivery of the 10 year plan. This work will be driven forward by a Steering Group bringing together the key stakeholders including service users professionals, employers, trade unions, education providers and health service colleagues. By December the group will need to set priorities for the next 3 years and have a plan for taking that work forward
7.2 The challenges facing the sector have been outlined above and therefore the focus of the Action Plan can be summarised as:
Bringing enough workers into the sector;
Keep workers in the sector; and
Developing and investing in workers (and also the organisations in which they work).
8. Recommendations
8.1 Demographic changes and changes in needs of Welsh communities demonstrate that there is going to be a significant increase in the demand for social care workers. This requires urgent attention and recognition that social care will be competing with a range of other labour markets. There is a need for a deeper understanding of the factors influencing recruitment and retention of social workers and social care workers at the local, regional and national levels. In particular there will be a need for close working with the NHS and the housing and education sectors to ensure that recruitment initiatives do not have a negative impact on related sectors.
8.2 Further work is required to address some of the issues raised in the document A Profession to Value and the Care Council looks forward to working with the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) Cymru in taking that work forward. There is a need for a similar exercise to be undertaken in relation to the social care workforce to enable the sector to be positioned to address the significant challenges it faces in the near future.
8.3 There is a need to develop clear career pathways for social workers and social care workers with specialist training being made a requirement for practice in specific areas. The career pathways need to enable social workers to achieve career progression through focused social work practice as well as through managerial routes. In addition there should be a review of roles that may be required alongside those of social workers to enable social workers to devote time to active intervention in child and adult cases.
8.4 There is a wish within the sector for regulation to be extended as compulsory for social care workers. This would add to public protection at a time when there needs to be a significant growth in the workforce and provides a means by which qualification levels and training can be enhanced.
8.5 There needs to be close working with the NHS on the development of new roles and potentially existing roles which overlap and this development work is best done through analysis of services for particular groups of service users.
8.6 The funding available to support training in social care needs to be directed to those areas identified as priorities for the sector and must be available in ways which are flexible to support the geographical and working patterns of those working in the social care sector.
8.7 A review is required of the potential of the local and regional social care workforce development partnerships to build on what has been achieved. In addition to assessing how the partnerships can address issues of recruitment and retention in the sector there is the potential for employers to identify learning needs and working with colleges and training providers at local or regional level.
