There is a ‘revolving door’ of social workers at Croydon Council, a meeting heard.

The overall vacancy rate in children’s social care was stuck at 35% from October last year until January. But this is down from 45% in September.

The highest vacancy rates in the department are in the assessment service team which were at 78% for the last three months of 2018.

Executive director of children, families and education at the council said it would be ‘extrememly worrying’ for this trend to continue.

In 2017 Croydon Council’s children’s services were rated inadequate by Ofsted and since then an Improvement Programme has been put in place.

On Tuesday night (March 12) the children and young people’s sub-committee heard an update.

An update noted that the increase in vacancies needs to be looked at in the context of a ‘rapid increase in the social care workforce’.

More than 35 full time equivalent positions were created between December 2017 and September 2018. 

More teams of social workers have been added to the care planning service to meet the volume of referrals.

These have been filled by locum staff which has pushed up the vacancy rates.

In Croydon there are about 800 looked after children including unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

Mr Henderson said: “We are concerned about the number of staff leaving, some of that is desired some of that isn’t and where it isn’t we are having exit interviews which are now on a systematic basis.

“We are trying to analyse that information and look at themes of that to make sure we address this head on.

“It is an ongoing issue but we are hoping and expecting to see that improve and if it doesn’t we would be extremely worried.”

Chair of the sub-committee Councillor Robert Ward asked whether data can be put together which shows the ‘revolving door’ is slowing down.

He said that the vacancy rate has remained stable but this doesn’t show a lot of people leaving the department and being replaced.

He added: “You are doing all the right things and we are hiring more than we are losing so what can be done?”

Mr Henderson said he was looking at taking children in need work away from the care planning service.

“I think that will reduce case loads further, that will be attractive to staff and it will also mean that the children in meed get a better quality and effective service.

“We are also making sure that we are looking at the areas where team management isn’t good enough and addressing that head on.

“One of the common themes is that social workers don’t feel supported enough by their managers.”

And Councillor Patsy Cummings was concerned that changing teams of social workers would affect progress in the service overall.

“We are really concerned about the retention of staff especially with social workers because that is critical in our service,” she said.

“I am hoping things are changing – If you can’t retain staff then you can’t change things.”

Mr Henderson said that he hopes staff hearing positive assessments from Ofsted will help improve staff morale.

“Being inadequate and having Ofsted visits which constantly tell you you’re still not very good does deplete staff and make morale very low,” he said.

Ofsted made its fifth monitoring visit to the service over two days from February 19.

A full report from the visit will be published tomorrow (Thursday, March 14).

Mr Henderson added that the average case load is 15 but in the care planning service which dales with more complex child protection cases he wants to see cases brought down from 15 or 16 to 12.

“The staff are saying that even though the case loads are quite low the cases are quite demanding and stressful,” he added.