Debate contribution: Social Services Vacancies: North Belfast and West Belfast

Debate contribution by Mr Mike Nesbitt on 8 October 2024.

MLA

Mr Mike Nesbitt

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

8 October 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Social Services Vacancies: North Belfast and West Belfast

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4582093

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Deputy Speaker, thank you very much. I thank Carál Ní Chuilín for bringing forward this matter. It is important, particularly for that geographical area. She challenged me about the 81 vacancies and 60 being put in place. I am going to try to meet it, but we might need to speak off-line because I might not be comparing like with like. First, by way of context or background, there are around 6,600 registered social workers in Northern Ireland. The trusts are, of course, by far the largest employers: they have 4,800. The Belfast Trust has the highest number in post, and that is around 1,120 more generally. To come to the question that Carál Ní Chuilín has put to me: I signed off a letter to her earlier today. It is about a response on the number of vacant social worker posts for child and family, disability and mental health for North Belfast and West Belfast. In band 6 social worker vacancies, the Belfast Trust says that — it is very specific — in mental health, there is one; in disability, there is one; in children's community services, in whole-time equivalents, there are 19·3; and in children's homes, there are 13. My maths suggests that that is 24, and if we take that off the 81, it suggests that 57 vacancies have been filled. However, I accept that I might not be comparing like with like, and I am very happy to discuss it in a moment. I understand and very much appreciate that all the trusts have been experiencing high levels of vacancies and other types of absences in recent years. Members have correctly identified the chief reasons for that. However, due to a range of actions taken already, some of which I will outline, the regional vacancy rate for all social worker posts has, thankfully, been falling, but that does not mean that the problem is resolved. I will set out the context, because it is important to note that, due to the way in which social work services are delivered, which is mostly in small local teams, any absences from those teams, whether through illness or long-term leave or because of vacancies, mean that there is a much greater burden on the staff who remain at work. I acknowledge that fact and pay tribute to all our social workers who deliver services to adults, families and children every day, but I also accept what Carál was saying. They do not want people to pay tribute: they want people to pay them and give them the correct terms and conditions of employment, which include a certain work-life balance and a recognition that there are appropriate and inappropriate stress levels, and that we ask too much of people. As I have said repeatedly, our health and social care services are delivered by dedicated and committed staff, and we should be proud of them. With regard to Belfast in particular, I can inform Members that there are currently 41 vacant social work posts in the trust, of which 32 are in children's services and a further nine in adult services. That is for the trust in particular. There are also 21 social work posts in teams providing services to children with a disability, and six of these are vacant. I am assured by the Belfast Trust that it is actively seeking to fill all its current vacancies. However, we know that there is a limited pool of potential candidates available. My Department recognises that we need to train more social workers in Northern Ireland, and, to that end, we have been steadily increasing the number of commissioned student places in recent years. The baseline in 2021 was 260 places. That went to 285 in 2023 and to 325 this year. I secured the funding for those additional 40 places this year in response to the need for more social workers, but I should say that that increase is for one additional cohort only. So, given the increasing demand for social workers, particularly as new services develop and legislation is introduced, I hope that I can make a strong case for recurrent funding. That brings me to the actions that have been, and are being, taken to stabilise the social work workforce, which is as important as increasing overall capacity. In 2020, the Department commissioned a review of the social work workforce in Northern Ireland, which reported in 2022. The Department now has in place a social work workforce implementation board, which was established following the publication of the social work workforce review. Led by the Chief Social Worker, the membership of the board includes key stakeholders in social work, and its aim is to provide the leadership and accountability that is needed to ensure the development and stabilisation of the social work workforce. Reform plans in place for social work include, for example, the production of a 10-year attract, recruit and retain plan that is aimed at maximising attraction into social work training; the implementation of an effective recruitment process; the development of strategies to improve the rates of retention; a growth in the number of social work training places by as much as funding allows; a continuation of the fast-track recruitment route for future cohorts of newly qualified social workers; and the establishment of an evidence base for safer staffing to develop regional guidance. The social work workforce review made several key recommendations that are now being actioned. In December 2022, as a first and highly significant step towards reform, the Department, in collaboration with the trusts, took the decision to cease the use of recruitment agencies to fill trust vacancies by the end of June 2023. At that point, there were in excess of 200 recruitment agency social workers employed in the trusts, some of whom had been working that way for years. That growing trend of agency usage caused a degree of instability in the workforce. It also hampered the building of meaningful relationships, which, of course, is the essence of good social work. All the social workers who were employed by recruitment agencies were then given the opportunity to apply for substantive posts, and the vast majority did so. I am glad to say that no social workers in the trusts are now employed by a recruitment agency, which has been key to allowing the other reform measures to go ahead. At the same time, early in 2023, the Department sought to introduce a much more streamlined approach to recruiting the 240 to 250 newly qualified social workers who graduate from our universities each year. I am pleased to say that, in 2023, that resulted in 208 newly qualified social workers joining the trusts. So far this year, 206 have taken up permanent contracts in trusts. A further 14 newly qualified social workers are going through pre-employment checks, and I hope that they will start in the coming weeks. In 2023, the Belfast Trust recruited 59 of the overall cohort of newly qualified social workers: 36 went to posts in children's services, 26 of whom went to children's teams in North Belfast and West Belfast. This year, the total intake in Belfast was slightly lower, with 50 newly qualified social workers: 34 went into children's services, with 28 of those going into children's teams in North Belfast and West Belfast. So, in the past two years, the Belfast Trust has managed to attract 109 newly qualified social workers into post: 70 are employed in children's services, of whom 54 have gone into vacancies in North Belfast and West Belfast.

I am afraid that I do not have the information that the Member is seeking, but we will certainly try to get that for him in the days ahead. In the limited time that I have remaining, I will move on to the issue of industrial action, which some Members referred to. Productive discussions have been ongoing, but some issues remain unresolved. I recognise the workforce and the workload pressures in social work services, which, as Carál Ní Chuilín suggested, may be connected to safe staffing. The Chief Social Worker has published an initial report, 'Safe Staffing in Social Work Research and Policy Development', and, between September and November, discussions are taking place about that. The key issues that I want to address are particularly, for example, the composition of social work caseloads in relation to the levels of staff experience. As I said, there are acceptable levels of stress in any job, but there are also unacceptable levels of stress. If social workers feel that they are not competent, well-trained and experienced enough to tackle the caseload that they are being asked to take on, that is counter-strategic. It is not good for the delivery or the individual. Finally, I was in North Belfast earlier today. I started the day at the Girdwood hub where I again made the point that, if you take a map of the Troubles hotspots and overlap it with a contemporaneous map of health issues, particularly mental health and well-being, you have a match. The match is in places such as North Belfast, and I am committed and determined to do something about that.

1,533 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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