Children's Social Care faces "significant" recruitment challenges

Thursday 25 July 2024

"Significant" recruitment challenges in Jersey's social care and fostering service is creating "instability", the Children’s Minister has said. 

Constable Richard Vibert said that the Children's Social Care and Fostering Service is facing staffing issues, particularly in recruiting social workers and residential care staff.

The challenges were outlined in a letter to Scrutiny in response to inquiries from the Children, Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel.  

The Minister said: “We continue experiencing challenges with recruitment particularly Social Worker roles and roles within Residential Services, until we are able to recruit to roles that are currently undertaken by agency workers or exiting employees who have taken on additional hours we will continue to experience instability within our workforce."

Pictured: Constable Vibert said that the "nature of the work" makes it difficult to recruit social workers in Jersey.

As of last month, Children's Social Care employed 205 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff, with 194 FTE in permanent positions and 11 FTE in temporary roles.

The department's turnover rate over the past 12 months was 6.9%, which is slightly below the Government-wide average of 8%.

Constable Vibert explained that the "nature of the work" makes it difficult to recruit social workers in Jersey.

He said: "Qualified Social Worker posts in Family Safeguarding are challenging to fill, this is consistent with the UK where this is a more challenging service to recruit for due to the nature of the work."

A high numbers of vacancies in the UK for both permanent and temporary social work positions were creating a competitive job market, he added.

Constable Vibert explained these challenges were furthered by how many social worker were choosing to leave the field across the UK.

Pointing to additional Jersey-specific challenges, the Minister said that a small population that could lead to conflicts of interest.

"Social Workers encountering children and families outside of the work context is both undesirable and inevitable," he said.

Meanwhile, he said that potential workers in the UK could be put off by working on-island due to perceptions of the high cost of living in Jersey, difficulties in securing property, and negative perceptions of the island's social care provision.

Pictured: St Peter Constable Richard Vibert is the Minister for Children.

Constable Vibert said there have also been "significant challenges" in recruiting for Registered Manager, Shift Lead, and Residential Childcare Officer (RCCO) roles in Residential Services.

The Minister explained: "The challenges for recruiting Registered Manager roles are similar to recruiting Social Workers, whereas for Shift Lead and RCCO roles, the challenges are linked to a competitive on-island market of roles at similar pay with more desirable work."

Data from December 2023 revealed that children in care for two years or more had an average of 1.8 social workers in the previous 12 months, and 2.5 social workers in the previous 24 months.

However, the Minister clarified that changes in social workers are not solely due to staff turnover but can also result from responding to a child's needs or transfers between services.

As of December 2023, 477 children were being supported by a social worker in Jersey.