Recruitment and retention

Where is Scotland in 2024?

There are significant challenges with recruiting people to, and retaining them in, the workforce required to provide support and meet the needs of children, young people, families and care experienced adults at current levels. The recognised workforce crisis makes ensuring the work required to #KeepThePromise is fully resourced is challenging, and is exacerbated by financial constraints, the impact of COVID-19, and ongoing issues related to the cost of living. Organisations are responding with initiatives such as training programmes, mental health support and policies aimed at nurturing staff. Yet, these do not tackle the central issue of an over-stretched workforce and the systemic barriers, such as inadequate IT systems and difficulties in recruitment, that continue to hamper progress.

The need to have a supported, stable workforce is essential to enable them to support Scotland’s children, young people, families, and care experienced adults, and to ensure relationships are prioritised.

Where does Scotland need to be by 2030?

By 2030, Scotland will have established a new way of thinking about the workforce, including putting in place measures to support and enhance recruitment and retention of those who care for Scotland’s children. This means:

There will be enough skilled and confident members of the unpaid and paid workforce to meet the needs of Scotland’s children, families and care experienced adults.
Anyone working alongside children, families and care experienced adults, including midwives, health visitors, family support workers and social workers, will be well resourced and supported and have sufficient capacity to care in the way the promise demands.
The workforce will be nurtured throughout their care-giving journeys and this will be understood as a vital part of ensuring all children can grow up in an environment in which they feel loved and can thrive.
Reflection, supervision and structured support will be recognised as an essential part of practice for anyone working with children, young people, families, and care experienced adults. Support for staff will be available, effective, flexible and regular.
The ability of the workforce to act with care and compassion will be prioritised and the barriers to that, such as workload, environmental conditions, unnecessary bureaucratic processes, will be mitigated.
Employment conditions will allow people involved in the care of children to flourish and feel valued. This includes with respect to workload, remuneration, secure employment status and environmental conditions.
Residential care workers will be recruited on the basis of their values rather than educational levels.

The route map to get there

Focus must be on the crisis on the workforce in and around Scotland’s ‘care system’; there are simply not enough people in the system to do the work required to care and support, let alone reform. For progress to be made, work must prioritise reducing the impact this is having, with a view to resolving the crisis.

The Scottish Government are working with key stakeholders to develop an effective voice of the workforce in the care sector, including a new national framework for social care and social work as part of ongoing discussions on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

A joint working group with COSLA has also been established to address immediate issues affecting the workforce. This is in line with recommendation 1.5 in ‘Hearings for Children’ (the challenges relating to the recruitment, retention, and resourcing of child and family social work teams must be urgently resolved), which was accepted by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government have also developed a joint Workforce Improvement Plan with COSLA and key stakeholders, which seeks to address the recruitment and retention challenges facing the social work profession, which includes implementing workforce improvements and refining social work vacancy data to enhance accuracy in planning for the demands of the future workforce. Discussions are ongoing between the Scottish Government, COSLA, Social Work Scotland, Scottish Association of Social Workers, Unison and Scottish Services Council to ensure the Improvement Plan is influenced and informed by the voices of social work and other key stakeholders.

The Scottish Government will also review the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS)’s research about the future delivery of children’s services and develop a programme of improvement activity which will include action to address workforce challenges set out in the fourth research report.

Work is continuing to progress relating to the development of a National Social Work Agency, linked to the development of the National Care Service.

The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) will introduce return to practice requirements for social workers, which will create a pathway for social workers who have been out of social work practice and off the SSSC register for more than two years to return to work.

Work is underway to support the social work workforce. This includes the creation of an Advanced Social Work Practice by the SSSC to support social workers at different career stages, offering a blend of academic, learning, development, and work-based opportunities. Subsequently, a practice framework for paraprofessionals in social work will be developed to ensure a consistent approach to their professional development. Furthermore, it will investigate new routes into higher education and consider launching a Graduate Apprenticeship in social work.

In 2024 and throughout 2025 and 2026, the Scottish Government will continue to lead work together with stakeholders to prepare for the implementation of all aspects of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024. This will include significant work with Children’s Hearings Scotland to ensure that there are a sufficient number of fully trained and skilled Panel Members to uphold children’s rights as the provisions in the Act relating to the Children’s Hearings commence.

There is expected to be a Scottish Government consultation on a national, strategic approach to foster care. That is include consideration of the recruitment and retention of foster carers.

The review of the National Occupational Standards (NOS), which underpin all qualifications accepted by the SSSC, will be complete. The review will consider children’s views and identify current skills gaps, revise language, and strengthen elements of the current qualifications to meet ambitions in the promise.

The findings of the National Occupational Standards (NOS) review must be considered and embedded.

The actions outlined in the Voice foundation are fully embedded at every stage to progress actions on Recruitment and retention.

Activity does not focus solely on social work and care workforces. Consideration must be given to how the capacity and development of the wider workforce is maintained.

What is helping?

In 2022, the Scottish Government published its National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care in Scotland which sets out a national framework to achieve its vision of a sustainable, skilled workforce with attractive career choices where all are respected and valued for the work they do.

In 2023 the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and Care Inspectorate published Safer Recruitment Through Better Recruitment, which has sections on promoting care experience and links to support and advice throughout.

The Scottish Government has acknowledged the significant pressures that social care and social work workforces continue to face, and has stated that it is committed to taking immediate action to address some of the challenges. These were set out in a letter to the Education, Children and Young People Committee in January 2024, including work with the SSSC and partners to upskill and develop the workforce, and promote career opportunities to address recruitment and retention and attract new people to the sector to ensure sustainability of services in the future.

CELCIS was commissioned by the Scottish Government in June 2022 to carry out independent research to help inform the future of the delivery of children’s services. CELCIS published their fourth research report in November, in which members of the children’s services workforce highlight opportunities, challenges and barriers within the services in which they operate.