- Conference
- 2003 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 20 February 2003
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
This Local Government Service Group Conference notes with considerable concern the way in which grading and pay of social workers, and other social care professional staff, has over recent years fallen badly behind that of a range of other professional groups and in particular behind that of professional colleagues in the education and health fields with whom they have been legitimately compared over many years.
This Conference believes that the recruitment and retention difficulties experienced by local authorities in relation to social workers can only be properly tackled by a radical improvement in remuneration for these staff, combined with renewed efforts to combat the negative public perception of the social work profession engendered by irresponsible and distorted media reporting of aspects of their work.
Whilst welcoming initiatives such as those in Scotland, to pay off student loans for social workers, the creation of incentives for other social work staff to fast track and grade increases by some local authorities, Conference, nevertheless, believes that with levels of social worker vacancies running at 50% in some authorities a national review of grades and conditions of employment is required not only to recruit new workers but to retain existing staff.
Severe recruitment problems also affect many other key professional groups such as occupational therapists, home care staff, and residential care workers. Local councils and other employers have signally failed to provide the resources to pay adequate salaries and to offer the training opportunities necessary to persuade people to join the service and to stay and develop their skills.
Conference notes the work of the Social Work Issues Group set up by the Scottish Local Government Service Group Executive in highlighting the issues for social workers and other social work staff in Scotland.
Conference welcomes the publication of the ‘The Way Forward for Scotland’s Social Work’ document. In particular, Conference notes the demand for an agreed definition of the role of a QSW, the specific tasks which QSWs are trained to perform and for a review of the support needs of frontline staff including the setting of standards for the number of QSWs required to meet the appropriate levels of service at a local level.
This Service Group Conference calls on the Service Group Executive, in conjunction with the National Social Services Committee, to give urgent attention to ways in which the above situation can be addressed and to involve regions, branches and social work professionals in developing a campaign designed to improve the pay and status of all social care staff.