What do child protection social workers consider to be the systemic factors driving workforce instability within the English child protection system, and what are the implications for the UK Government’s reform strategy?

ABSTRACT

In 2023, the UK Government published its long-awaited reform strategy for England’s children’s social care system. Whilst the strategy set out planned reforms for several aspects of the wider system, an area requiring particular ‘priority’ was the purported workforce instability seen within child protection social work. However, the strategy has subsequently faced criticism on the basis that the suggested reforms were not satisfactorily informed by the testimonies of practicing social workers. This paper draws from a mixed-method study to report on the lived experiences of a sample of 201 child protection social workers practicing across England, in the context of better understanding the factors which they believed were impacting on workforce stability within England’s child protection system. Implications that emerge are the need for an increase in the monetary commitment offered by the UK Government (especially in the context of tackling high caseloads, and improving local authority pay scales to reduce the allure of agency work); a targeted emphasis on challenging local cultures preoccupied with evidencing compliance over time spent with children; and the Government taking a more assertive role in tackling the often-counterproductive commentary perpetuated by politicians and media.

KEYWORDS:

• Child protection
• children’s social care
• stability
• social work
• workforce

Introduction

In February 2023, the Department for Education (DfE) published its reform strategy for children’s social work in England as a response to the recommendations of the Review of Children’s Social Care (MacAlister, 2022). Following a period of consultation, the UK Government published a further document in September 2023 setting out its plan for a ‘once in a generation reform [of] [England’s] children’s social care’ system (Department for Education [DfE], 2023b, p. 4). Entitled ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, the strategy recommendations were broad in nature and covered several domains of the system. However, an area identified as requiring particular attention was the need to ‘improve workforce stability’ within statutory children’s social work (DfE, 2023c, p. 21). This, the strategy argued, would better enable ‘practitioners to build relationships with children and families’ (DfE, 2023c, p. 21), which in turn would improve the experiences and safety of children accessing the system (DfE, 2023c).

Currently, workforce instability within statutory children’s social work in England is reflected in record vacancies of 22% and agency¹ rates of 18% (DfE, 2023a; Murphy, 2024). Also, in the context of a 3.5% sickness rate (DfE, 2023a) – which remains significantly higher than the 2.2% recorded for the general population (Office National Statistics [ONS], 2022) – and more practitioners leaving children’s social work roles in 2022 than in any of the previous six years (DfE, 2023a). Whilst these figures do not differentiate between the different social work roles, wider literature highlights that the field of child protection remains a particular area of concern (e.g. DfE, 2023b, 2023c; McLaughlin et al., 2022; Ravalier, 2023) – with associated links being made to child death tragedies (Murphy, 2023, 2024; Association of Child Protection Professionals [AoCPP], 2023; Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel [CSPRP], 2024).

Indeed, ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ recognised that England’s child protection workforce is an area requiring ‘urgent’ reform, and as such, outlined several ‘major actions’ ostensibly designed to promote ‘greater workforce stability’ within the English child protection system (DfE, 2023b, p. 21) – for example, by improving ‘the support for social workers early in their careers’; ‘improv[ing] working conditions’; and ‘boosting recruitment’ (DfE, 2023c, p. 21). However, critics highlight that this rhetoric echoes several previous sentiments and longstanding but unfulfilled commitments for reform (most notably those which arose following the Munro Review of Child Protection more than 10 years ago). Also, that overall, the implementation strategy remains vague and ambiguous, especially in the context of a meagre £200 m commitment to achieving the necessary changes (AoCPP, 2023).

More broadly, there is concern that in seeking to identify the areas where reform is most ‘urgent’, the Government’s strategy does not seemingly draw directly from the lived experiences of the social workers delivering child protection services (AoCPP, 2023). This is problematic if we consider that social workers working within the system remain one of its key stakeholders, with arguably a unique understanding of both the challenges faced, and where targeted action should be prioritised (Murphy, 2023; Ravalier, 2023). Indeed, there is the risk that without a more thorough assessment and inclusion of these practitioners’ accounts, the Government’s strategy will not lead to the targeted and necessary reforms (AoCPP, 2023; Murphy, 2023).

This paper seeks to address this knowledge gap by drawing directly from the lived experiences of a cohort of 201 practicing child protection social workers to consider the different systemic factors that they believe are contributing to workforce instability within England’s child protection system.

Methods

Research design

The purpose of the study was to explore what practicing child protection social workers considered to be the main factors impacting upon key measures of workforce instability – particularly the high sickness, turnover, agency, and vacancy rates reported in child protection teams around England. In doing so, the study sought to build on previous research which highlighted the importance of learning from the lived experiences of child protection social workers in the context of understanding the factors underpinning workforce instability within England’s child protection system, but which was limited to a smaller sample of social workers (n25) emanating from a single geographical area (see Murphy, 2023). This project sought to extend the enquiry to a large sample of current child protection social workers working across the different regions of England and to consider their experiences in the context of the UK Government’s reform strategy ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’.

Ethical approval was granted by Edge Hill University’s Health-related Research Ethics Committee in August 2022 (reference ETH2122–0267). The study also received endorsement from both the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) (reference RGE220824) and the Association of Child Protection Professionals (AoCPP) (reference EHUCM0223). Formal data collection took place between October 2022 and July 2023.

The research encompassed an iterative mixed-method design, consisting of focus groups (n3), online questionnaire, and individual interviews (n25). A sample of research questions for each stage of data collection can be seen in Appendix. Inclusion criteria dictated that participants were a social worker practicing on a statutory child protection team in England.

In total, 201 practicing child protection social workers from 79 of England’s local authorities, took part in this study. Of these, 15 participated in the focus groups, 170 in the questionnaire, and 25 in the interviews (with 9 practitioners participating in multiple stages of data collection – i.e. questionnaire and interview). At the time of participation, the group had been qualified for a mean time of 2 years and 4 months, and had worked as a child protection social worker for a similar length of time. Their age ranged from 21 to 56 years old; 92% identified that their first language was ‘English’; 72% identified as ‘White British’; and 89% identified as ‘female’.

The study adopted a critical realist stance, seeking to identify general ‘tendencies’ in respect to the social workers’ accounts of their practice experience, with a specific focus on identifying oppressive social structures and processes underpinning these experiences (see Murphy, 2021a, 2021b). This approach adheres to the Munro review’s call to provide explanatory, as opposed to descriptive, accounts of the child protection system, with the aim of challenging the status quo, in the interests of achieving more innovative and ‘child-centred’ practice (Munro, 2011; Murphy, 2022c).

On this basis, the data analysis adopted Kempster and Parry’s (2014) model of ‘Critical Realist Grounded Theory’. This approach maintains features of traditional Grounded Theory (e.g. an iterative design, coding, and theoretical sampling), but is distinguished by a focus on retroductive processes (Kempster & Parry, 2014). Therefore, there is an emphasis on contextualisation and generalisation – meaning that the model enables both a richer grounded theory and for future researchers to apply and test generative mechanisms (i.e. the causal processes and structures underpinning phenomena) in their own social environments. This addresses a key limitation of traditional models (Kempster & Parry, 2014) and was considered important in the context of understanding features of child protection practice across England.

Data analysis

For the purposes of this study, the process of initial coding (see Charmaz, 2014) was applied to each transcript of data generated from the focus groups, questionnaire, and interviews. This was on the basis that new codes and ideas can emerge at any time in the data analysis process – even when the design of a later stage of data collection has been informed by the codes derived from a previous one (Charmaz, 2014). In producing a list of ‘initial codes’, the research team employed a technique of ‘line-by-line’ as opposed to ‘word-by-word’ or ‘segment-by-segment’ coding (see Charmaz, 2014, p. 124). Although each line of text did not produce a useful code – as oftentimes it was based on an incomplete sentence – it did provide a plethora of ideas which may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

In addition, the research team engaged in the process of focused coding (see Charmaz, 2014) and diligently compared and contrasted the focus codes that emerged from different sources of data collection (for example, the codes from one interview were compared to those from previous interviews as well as those from the focus groups and questionnaire). This enabled the continual development and refinement of a ‘master list’ of focused codes to apply and consider against new data. This was important in the context of critical realist grounded theory, in that it facilitated the development of ideas whilst ensuring that the focus codes (and the ‘analytic notes’ that emerged from them – see below) were representative of the participants’ testimonies and reflected not only a descriptive account of features of workforce instability, but the explanatory element that was central to the critical realist framework.

Following this, the research team engaged in the process of ‘memo-writing’ (i.e. making ‘analytic notes’ about the focussed codes and theoretical categories – Charmaz, 2014, p. 162). This was considered essential in the context of enabling retroductive reasoning, on the basis that it encourages theorising as to why phenomena appear as they are (Charmaz, 2014) – which is considered fundamental to identifying the ‘causal mechanisms’ central to critical realist grounded theory (Kempster & Parry, 2014). Furthermore, the research team engaged in the process of theoretical sampling – i.e. ‘movement between collection and analysis … seeking pertinent data to elaborate and refine [the] emerging theory’ (Charmaz, 2014, p. 192). This allowed the progressive ‘test’ and development of ideas whilst addressing specific gaps in analytic notes, meaning that at the end of the process the team were confident that they had produced a series of findings that provided a robust and accurate account of the social workers’ experiences, and of the causal mechanisms underpinning them.

To control for researcher bias and engage in the process of reflexivity, all members of the research team contributed to each stage of the data analysis. Moreover, the research team met regularly throughout the process to discuss, challenge, and develop the emerging theory, to ensure that it was defensible and representative of the data findings.

The results of this analysis will be presented through a discussion of the three major themes that were extracted from the data in response to the study’s focal research question: ‘What factors are driving different measures of workforce instability within England’s child protection system?’

Findings

Child protection social work’s negative public image

A particular area of focus in the social workers’ testimonies was the impact of what they considered to be the negative public image of child protection social workers in England – purportedly cultivated by English media and politicians over several decades:

I remember being a kid in the [19]80s and reading headlines in my dad’s paper, which said ‘social workers are busybody do-gooders … they’ll snatch your kids … they can’t be trusted’ … I think it’s a message that is ingrained in you from an early age in this country. (SW9-Interview)

Indeed, participants reflected that whilst they had understood that the negative image of child protection social workers was an issue before coming into the role, they admitted being surprised by the barriers that this had created for them as practitioners – particularly in the context of working with families:

I wasn’t prepared for the level of suspicion and lack of trust from families and that a huge part of the job is actually trying to convince them that we are trustworthy, we are here to help, and we don’t get bonuses for removing kids. (SW19-Questionnaire)

Social workers described how a family’s ‘default starting position’ was often one of ‘the social worker should not be trusted’ – meaning that time and effort was subsequently spent countering this narrative before meaningful work could be undertaken. This, they asserted was ‘frustrating’, given the feeling that social workers were ‘often on the back foot’ when meeting a family for the first time. Moreover, it was problematic, in the sense that the social workers already felt ‘overstretched’:

Our high caseloads and paperwork mean that we have such little time to visit families…then families need extra time to overcome that lack of trust, suspicion, and to build the relationship … but we just don’t have that time to give them … it can feel like the relationship is doomed from the start. (SW15-Interview)

This notion that relationships with children and their families could be ‘doomed from the start’, was a sentiment expressed (albeit in differing terms) throughout the data collection. Importantly, in the context of this paper, it was something that social workers aligned to dissatisfaction within the child protection social work workforce, on the basis that:

Child protection social work just doesn’t do what it says on the tin…You come in thinking you will spend loads of time with children … helping them and making a positive difference … But of the little time we have with them, so much is spent just trying to overcome the negative image they have of us. (SW19-Interview)

Indeed, participants aligned the purported instability within the child protection workforce with a frustration that social workers felt about the poor public image of their profession:

People wonder why there are so many people leaving or going on agency … it’s not a mystery … They are sick of the reputation that we have … getting blamed when things go wrong and the hurdles this creates … it isn’t what they signed up for … I guess agency work pays better and gives that sense of danger money doesn’t it? [laughs]. (SW3-Interview)

Moreover, they believed that the negative public image of the role was directly dissuading potential applicants from applying for jobs in frontline child protection work, meaning that many vacancies remained unfilled, which in turn drove up the demand on existing staff and increased the need for agency workers:

The reputation means that newly qualified staff think ‘I’ll do anything but child protection’ … so we have all these vacancies … but the demand doesn’t decrease … it’s just up to the rest of us to fill the gap…But people get exhausted, they go off sick … and then we have to bring in agency cover. (SW2-Focus Group 3)

The encroaching nature of child protection social work

Practitioners also described that the various demands which accompanied the child protection social work role, meant that it was difficult to achieve a reasonable work–life balance, and that this was another significant factor in understanding workforce instability within the child protection system. Indeed, the social workers highlighted several features of their role which they felt demonstrated its capacity to encroach into their home and/or personal life.

For example, practitioners considered that the role regularly necessitated that they undertook extra (often unpaid) work in the evenings and at weekends, but at the expense of their own family and caring responsibilities:

I can’t remember the last time I left work at 5 pm … I do an extra 10–15 hours a week … I don’t get paid for it … and I work that around parenting my own kids … it’s exhausting … I’m on the edge of burning out. (SW14-Interview)

When asked to identify what they thought was underpinning the need to work over contracted hours, participants were consistent in their response:

The size of our caseloads … I’ve got 42 cases and I’m supposed to work 37 hours a week, so that’s less than one hour per child … But that doesn’t account for all the paperwork and running around I do … it’s impossible to get it all done in 37 hours. (SW117-Questionnaire)

Relatedly, social workers highlighted the ‘level of stress’ that they felt accompanied the role, and described that this would habitually encroach into their personal time:

We have a worry pot in the office … we write down the stuff we are worried about and then discuss that during group supervision … It’s the stuff that wakes you up at night, the ‘oh God, I forgot to do that’ stuff … It’s a good idea, but the funny thing is, there are too many [worries] to get through [grimaces] … those worries make you ill. (SW7-Interview)

Indeed, the social workers repeatedly highlighted a series of health difficulties that they felt had manifested during their time as child protection social workers. Most often, this was in the context of psychological ill-health and related to issues of ‘stress’, ‘anxiety’, and ‘depression’. However, they also identified a series of physical health conditions which they apportioned to the demanding nature of their role:

Children’s social work is stressful and that’s why we have high sickness levels. But I don’t think there is a recognition of how that impacts upon the rest of your health … I’m still in my 20s and I’ve only been doing the job for 4 years, but in that time, I’ve been to the doctors about loads of unexplained illness … Blood tests and scans are inconclusive, and the doctor asks, ‘what do you do for a job’, I say, ‘child protection social worker’ and they say ‘Ok, I think we’ve found the cause of the problem’. (SW10-Interview)

The social workers explained that contributing to the high level of stress and associated health issues, was the tendency for them (and indeed, their loved ones) to become the target for threats and abuse from service users and members of the public:

We are always targeted, and our families too … we actually decided to move our eldest [child] to a school in a different area, after we found out that a grandmother on one of my cases had grandchildren in his school … but it was too late, they had already been saying really nasty stuff to him … he was scared to go in … he thought they might hurt him. (SW12-Interview)

The social workers believed that this tendency was again underpinned by the poor public image of their profession, and particularly the negative commentary provided by national media and politicians:

The public are so used to newspapers and politicians saying ‘these social workers are letting kids get abused’ it’s like they become indoctrinated to the idea that social workers are lazy or heartless…So, when Mr Smith finds out you are a social worker, he feels justified in attacking you … he feels it’s his civic duty. (SW139-Questionnaire)

On this basis, several participants explained how their family members and loved ones had actively discouraged them from beginning, or else continuing in, a child protection social work role:

To be honest my husband has been trying to persuade me to pack it in since my first year in practice [laughs]. (SW2-Focus Group 2)

Really – because of the abuse and threats? (Facilitator)

Yeah. (SW2-Focus Group 2)

My parents tried to talk me out of child protection social work when I first qualified last year. (SW4-Focus Group 2)

Mine too … in fact every time I go round [sic] now, they bring it up … they worry something bad will happen … the message is always ‘surely the abuse and risk is not worth it’. (SW1-Focus Group 2)

Ultimately, the participants of this study repeatedly identified how the different features of the child protection role habitually encroached into their personal life, thereby cultivating ‘a poor work-life balance’. Moreover, that this was a key driver of workforce instability within England’s child protection system:

I know several colleagues who have been driven out of child protection and social work completely … it’s the late nights, never being available for their own kids, and the threats and intimidation you receive … it becomes all-consuming … they’d rather deliver groceries for Tesco. (SW93-Questionnaire)

An unsatisfactory time with children

Apparent in the preceding sections is that the social workers of this study generally felt that the poor public image of their profession was indirectly impacting upon the amount of time that they had to spend with children (i.e. by having to ‘pick up the slack’ for staff sickness and unfilled vacancies). However, social workers also separately aligned ‘a lack of time with children’ to a continued culture of bureaucracy and prescription which they felt was inherent within the wider child protection system. One social worker aptly described the general experience of the group:

My formula is that I will usually spend about 10–20% of my time doing social work – you know visiting or working directly with children – and the rest of the time writing about it [laughs] [original emphasis]. (SW2-Focus Group 1)

On this basis, the questionnaire asked the responding practitioners to estimate ‘the percentage of [their] time in the last working week spent visiting/working directly with children’. Moreover, to record their working hours for the previous working week. The mean number of working hours from the 170 responses received was 48 hours. Significant findings in relation to this figure included that:

• 45% of respondents estimated that they spent ‘less than 10%’ of their work week visiting/working directly with children’.

• 37% estimated that they spent between ‘11% and 20%’ of their work week visiting/working directly with children.

• Only three respondents (equating to <2% of total responses) estimated that they spent ‘more than 40%’ of the work week visiting/working directly with children.

• 53% estimated that they spent ‘more than 80%’ of their work week completing ‘desk-based activities/paperwork’.

• Only nine respondents (5% of total responses) estimated that they spent ‘40% or less time’ of their work week on ‘desk-based activities/paperwork’.

• Only 21% of respondents identified that in the last week, they had worked ‘40 hours or less’.

• 57% of respondents estimated that in the last week, they had worked ‘50 hours or more’.

• 68% of respondents identified that within that last week, they had completed additional work for which they did not expect to receive ‘pay’, ‘toil’, or ‘flexitime’.

When explaining the causal underpinnings (i.e. the structural and social mechanisms) of a work environment that they considered to be ‘dominated’ by bureaucracy and ‘paperwork’ and the need to work over contracted hours (often without additional pay/renumeration), social workers described a workplace anxiety linked to the prospect of receiving a less than favourable external ‘Ofsted’ (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) inspection judgement – which they associated with the potential for negative publicity and job losses. Concurrently, they reported an ostensive belief amongst many local authority employers that a successful Ofsted inspection outcome could only be achieved if they could evidence absolute compliance with procedures and ‘a complete written account’ of work undertaken with the family – describing workplace mantras of ‘if it’s not on the system, then it hasn’t been done’ (see Murphy, 2022a)

Significantly, the emphasis on compliance with procedures was purportedly seen in managers explicitly encouraging social workers to spend large amounts of their time inputting data, but ostensibly ‘at the cost of time spent with children’ (SW1-Interview). Several social workers expressed their frustration on this basis, and again indicated that in these terms, child protection social work did not ‘do what it says on the tin’:

I came into child protection to help children. But to help them, you need to spend time with them to build that relationship. Instead, I sit at my computer making sure that my paperwork is ‘compliant’, and the procedures have been followed. It’s demoralising and unfulfilling. It’s not what I thought the job would be. My time is not determined by the needs of the child, but the need of the agency to evidence process and placate inspectors. This is what is driving social workers out of practice. (SW187-Questionnaire)

This last account again indicates the connection that the participants made between workforce instability, and the percentage of direct time that social workers reportedly spent with children – specifically, that insufficient time with the child was negatively impacting on the quality of relationships and was leading social workers to become ‘demoralised’; ‘go off sick’; take up agency positions; or else, leave the profession in search of a more ‘fulfilling’ role:

I wish [former colleague] was still here … she would tell you that we simply don’t have enough time with children, it’s totally demoralising and that’s why many of us choose to leave … she’s a nursery manager now … she says the pay’s not great, but it’s more rewarding being with the actual children all day. (SW4-Interview)

Discussion

It is widely recognised that the poor public image of child protection social workers in England has been exacerbated by a longstanding history of negative media and political commentary dating back to the 1970s and 1980s (Ayre, 2001; Murphy, 2022b, 2024; Parton, 2014). However, the social workers of this study expressed a concern that the national portrayal and perception of their profession (including amongst family and loved ones) was still a crucial factor underpinning workforce instability within the child protection system.

They explained that this manifested in two ways. Firstly, it exacerbated challenges around recruitment and retention, as practitioners’ preference was to work in a less critical practice environment and ‘away from the frontline’. Secondly, it caused difficulties for practitioners working within the system; both as they had to ‘pick up the slack’ for unfilled vacancies (leading to a sense of being ‘even further overstretched’), and as it was said to underpin a general level of distrust amongst the families that the social workers worked with – meaning that practitioners were often ‘on the back foot’ (and therefore, disadvantaged) when meeting families for the first time.

These experiences (along with the level of purported vitriol and associated stress that came with the negative public depiction of the role) were said to directly drive many practitioners out of child protection practice – they also contributed to accounts of family members actively discouraging social workers from taking up, or remaining in, child protection roles. Moreover, for those who decided to continue in child protection social work, it enhanced the allure of agency work – which practitioners felt offered better remuneration for the negative public image of their work and the associated challenges (including negative psychological and physical health, and the propensity to be targeted for threats and abuse – offering a sense of ‘danger money’).

Historically, national reports have identified strategies for how the negative public depiction of child protection social workers could be addressed. Most recently, the Munro Review of Child Protection (2011) called for more responsible reporting and commentary from national media and politicians. Whilst there has been evidence of progress in this regard (see Murphy, 2023), 2023 (and early 2024 – see Murphy, 2024) has again provided several examples of senior Government ministers (including the Prime Minister) publicly questioning the integrity of social workers working with vulnerable children (British Association of Social Workers [BASW], 2023c).

Moreover, there has been a recent succession of criminal trials in relation to child murders committed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these have been accompanied by a flurry of negative media stories (e.g. ‘Why did they walk away?’ – The Daily Mail, 2023) and loaded comments from politicians (e.g. ‘they should be banned from working with children … heads must roll’ – Conservative MP Nigel Mills). This, and broader research showing that most statutory children’s social workers continue to cite being publicly identified in the media as an underlying fear within their work (see Community Care, 2023; Unison, 2022; McLaughlin et al., 2022; Murphy, 2022b), highlights the need to urgently address this issue in the hope of promoting better workforce stability within England’s child protection system.

Whilst ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ expressed a commitment to work alongside the social work regulator to ‘inform and educate people on the role social workers play within society’ (DfE, 2023c, p. 124), it provides little detail for how this is to be achieved. Neither does it offer any explicit recognition for how the media or senior politicians seemingly continue to perpetuate the negative public image of the profession, nor propose a plan for how this specific issue can be better addressed. The findings of this study would suggest that this is a serious and potentially critical omission. Moreover, that it could undermine other efforts to improve workforce stability and, rather ironically, increase the likelihood of children being harmed – as competent social workers increasingly withdraw from the profession citing a ‘fear of being blamed’ (Murphy, 2023, 2024); and because parents who are suspicious of the motives and capabilities of social workers are more likely to decline offers of help, and are at increased risk of disguised non-compliance and disguised abuse (Calder & Archer, 2015).

On this basis, the findings of this study highlight that there is onus on the Government to move beyond mere ‘infom[ing] and ‘educat[ing]’, and that it should adopt a more assertive role in tackling the often-counterproductive commentary perpetuated by both Westminster and ‘Fleet Street’ – whilst also recognising that a change in public perception of child protection social workers will likely take several years to cultivate and embed (Murphy, 2022b).

The social workers who participated in this study also repeatedly identified different features of their work which they felt were reducing their sense of job satisfaction, and moreover, were contributing to a poor sense of work–life balance, and relatedly, the different aspects of workplace instability seen within the child protection system. Of particular concern was the impact of ‘high caseloads’, ‘burdensome bureaucracy’, and a purported inability to spend ‘satisfactory’ and ‘meaningful time with children’.

Of course, the issue of high caseloads and burdensome bureaucracy is not new and has been an ongoing area of concern throughout social work in England for over 30 years (Munro, 2011; Parton, 2014). However, literature is increasingly acknowledging the impact of these features of practice on working conditions and job satisfaction of UK social workers (e.g. CSPRP, 2024; Ravalier, 2023; Ravalier et al., 2021; Unison, 2022). Furthermore, previous research has highlighted how systemic factors like these lead to high levels of ‘stress’ and ‘burnout’ in child welfare settings (e.g. McFadden et al., 2015; Travis et al., 2016). However, the significance of this study is that social workers explicitly detailed how high caseloads and an overly bureaucratic and prescriptive work culture were exacerbating workplace ‘sickness’, ‘turnover’, ‘agency’, and ‘vacancy’ rates within England’s child protection system. For example, with increasing need to work over contracted hours (thereby intruding into the social workers’ family and personal life), and a sense of being ‘spread so thinly’ that insufficient time could be spent with individual children (leading to assertions that the work was ‘demoralising’ and ‘unfulfilling’).

The DfE (2023a) estimate that the ‘average caseload’ per full time statutory children’s social worker in England in 2022 was 16.6 cases. Unfortunately, the DfE do not differentiate between different social work roles, and so, there is no estimate of the average caseload size amongst England’s child protection social workers specifically. Moreover, the DfE remain vague in how they define ‘caseload’ (i.e. number of families or number of children?). However, this figure contrasts markedly from the data gathered during this study, where from the 170 questionnaire responses received to the question of ‘caseload size’ (defined as ‘number of children’), the mean caseload number was 34. This is more than double the DfE estimate, which is consistent with other recent findings (see British Association of Social Workers [BASW], 2023b; McLaughlin et al., 2022; Murphy, 2021a, 2021b, 2023) and brings into question the accuracy of the DfE’s statistics on workload and caseload size in a child protection context. This is significant given that national reviews commissioned after high profile child deaths have recommended that child protection social workers be limited to no more than 13 cases, given the high risk involved in this type of work (see Laming, 2003). However, this study also highlights the importance of ‘manageable’ caseloads in the context of promoting job satisfaction, work-life balance, and avoiding ‘burnout’ of social workers working within England’s child protection system.

Moreover, these findings build on recent research to explain why practicing social workers within England’s child protection system are increasingly seeking out agency employment – believing that it provides ‘fairer’ remuneration for their work and services (see DfE, 2023a; MacAlister, 2022; McLaughlin et al., 2022; Ravalier, et al., 2021). It is significant that of the 170 responses to the research questionnaire, 80% (n98) of respondents who identified as being ‘employed directly by the local authority’ answered ‘no’ to the question of whether they felt they were ‘paid fairly for the work’ they did. This contrasts with only 23% (n11) of respondents who identified that they were ‘employed via an agency’.

Whilst ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ initially focused on reforming rates of agency pay, there has been insufficient consideration of how improving local authority-based pay could address workforce instability within the child protection system. Indeed, a point of emphasis amongst the social workers of this study, was that many of the factors thought to be underpinning workforce instability within England’s child protection system (i.e. poor public perception of the role; high caseloads; poor work–life balance; etc.), would be better managed/’tolerated’ if local authority social workers were ‘more fairly compensated’ for their efforts and ‘sacrifices’. Indeed, a key implication that arises from this study is that rather than target the rates of pay for agency child protection social workers, the Government’s reform strategy should instead seek to increase the pay offered through local authority employment. Whether this is achievable remains to be seen, given that the UK is ostensibly embarking on a further period of austerity, and given the solitary £200 m committed by the Government to achieving the strategy’s planned reforms (which, incidentally, is less than 8% of the minimum £2.6bn identified as being required by the Review of Children’s Social Care and which critics have described as ‘inadequate’ in the context of achieving the reform agenda – AoCPP, 2023; Murphy, 2024).

Finally, the results of this study also point to the need to better address local cultures which social workers consistently described as overly concerned with evidencing compliance with process and prescription, meaning that ‘paperwork’ was often prioritised over ‘time with children’. Again, this remains a long-standing concern in the context of England’s child protection system (Munro, 2011). However, the significance of this study is that social workers described that this culture was impacting on the sense of job satisfaction amongst child protection social workers and was causing competent practitioners to resign from child protection roles and seek out alternative employment where they could spend satisfactory time ‘with actual children’. The fact that 82% of the 170 respondents to the research questionnaire estimated that they spent 20% or less of the last working week ‘visiting/working directly with children’, shows little progress in the context of protracted concerns about the division of child protection social workers time (e.g. Munro, 2011; Murphy, 2022a). This is also significant in the context of the British Association of Social Worker’s current 80:20 campaign (British Association of Social Workers [BASW], 2023a) and notions that in order to achieve effective relationship-based social work (and better protect children from abuse), practitioners need to be able to spend 80% of their time with the service users and only 20% on administrative tasks (Ravalier, 2023). The implication is that this continues to be a key area requiring reform.

Whilst ‘Stable Homes Built on Love’ explicitly recognises that onerous bureaucracy can ‘frustrate’ practitioners – accepting that it is considered the key cause of ‘not being able to spend enough time with [children] and families’ (DfE, 2023c, p. 124) – there is little acknowledgement of the impact of this on job satisfaction and workforce stability. Moreover, reforms are focused on ‘improving case management systems’ (DfE, 2023c, p. 127), as opposed to addressing those local work cultures which prioritise a complete written record over time with children (ostensibly as a means of satisfying Ofsted inspectors). The implication that emerges from this study is that a more holistic approach to addressing onerous bureaucracy within child protection teams is required, not only in the context of better enabling social workers to spend adequate time with children (and therefore, to identify and prevent abuse) but also, in the sense of improving job satisfaction, and tackling the different measures of workforce instability currently seen within the English child protection system and detailed throughout this paper.

Conclusion

The study has sought to build on previous findings pertaining to the factors underpinning workforce instability within the English child protection system (see Murphy, 2023). In doing so, the scope of enquiry has been expanded to a larger sample of social workers practicing across England. However, the limitation of the study is that its focus was on the views and experiences of England’s statutory child protection social workers only. Whilst the findings might resonate with other practitioners, there is a need to extend the study on these terms – so as to explore whether the factors identified as underpinning workforce instability are representative of other statutory social workers’ experiences across children’s social care (including those practicing in other parts of the UK).

Nevertheless, this study adds to the growing understanding of the factors contributing to workforce instability within the English child protection system, and the importance of addressing these in the interests of practitioners working within the system, but concurrently, the children in receipt of its services.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research via the Cheshire and Merseyside Social Work Teaching Partnership [CMSWTP-NIHRCM22].

Notes on contributors

Ciarán Murphy

Ciarán Murphy is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Edge Hill University. He is a qualified and registered social worker, specialising in child care/protection. Ciarán is Board member, Trustee and Research Lead for the Association of Child Protection Professionals (charity no. 1190441); Associate Editor of Child Abuse Review (ISSN:1099-0852); and sits on the Editorial Board for Child Protection and Practice (ISSN:2950-1938).

Jennifer Turay

Jennifer Turay, Nicole Parry and Nicola Birch are newly qualified social workers currently practicing in the field of child protection. Jennifer is employed by Dudley Metropolitan Council Children’s Services Department on the Children’s Safeguarding Team, whilst Nicole and Nicola both work for Wigan Council Children’s Services on the Safeguarding Academy Team 1.

Notes

1. ‘Agency’ or ‘locum’ social workers are employed on a temporary basis and through a private agency, which contrasts with those employed directed by local authorities (Department for Education [DfE], 2022).

Appendix

Sample of data collection questions

Focus groups

‘What are the factors contributing to sickness levels amongst child protection social workers?’

‘What factors are contributing to a reliance on agency social workers in child protection teams?

‘Why are practitioners choosing to leave child protection work?’

Questionnaire

‘What percentage of your time in the last working week was spent visiting/working directly with children?’

‘What is your current caseload size (i.e., number of chidlren)?’

‘Do you think you are paid fairly for the work you do? (Please explain your answer)’

Interviews

‘What impact does media and political commentary have on your work?’

‘What factors are impacting on your sense of work–life balance?’

‘What would you improve about child protection social work to make it more satisfactory/fulfilling?’