Birmingham's young social workers ‘sickest in the world’

Oct 16 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post

Birmingham social workers have been branded “the sickest young people in the world” by the author of a report that exposed serious shortcomings in the city’s children’s services department.

Tory Len Clark launched his attack after claiming that average absenteeism among staff at the city council’s adults and communities department has risen again to stand at almost four weeks a year.

Scrutiny committee chairman Coun Clark said it was “inevitable” that adults with severe disabilities requiring social services help would be at risk if sickness levels continued to run out of control.

He added: “We know that absenteeism levels have gone up again to 17.5 days a year.

“The age profile of our staff is relatively young and you wouldn’t expect them to be off sick for so many days.

“Have we got the sickest young people in the world?”

Last week Coun Clark sent shock waves through the council when a scrutiny inquiry he chaired hit out at “systemic failure” in children’s social services.

The department was failing children at risk of sexual and physical abuse and was unfit for purpose, the investigation found.

Staff sickness levels in children’s services are mirrored in adults’ social services, making it difficult to meet the needs of more than 3,000 people with severe learning difficulties.

The council spends more than £30 million a year on hiring agency social services staff to do the jobs of employees absent through ill-health.

A year ago the local government ombudsman described Birmingham City Council services for adults with learning disabilities as “woefully inadequate”.

An independent report commissioned by the council hit out at lengthy waiting times to see social workers which were made worse by staff sickness.

Sheila Rochester, the council’s new service director for younger adults, told Coun Clark’s committee that improvements were in place but she accepted that a growing number of adults with learning disabilities meant there would never be sufficient social workers.

More than half of the £70 million learning disabilities budget is spent on placing handicapped adults in residential care, in some instances at a cost per person of £250,000 a year.

Mrs Rochester said: “There are significant numbers of people with learning disabilities and not everyone is allocated a social worker at any one time. We couldn’t provide everyone with a social worker since we only have 39.

“We now have a better system in place to identify people at risk.”

A spokeswoman for the adults and communities department put sickness levels at 16 days a year rather than 17.5.

She added: “We have a large number of residential staff working with vulnerable adults who we require to be off sick if they show symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea.”