SOCIAL workers are being placed under increasing pressure, says a town care professional, as MPs call upon the Government to tackle high drop-out rates in the industry.

A new report from the Commons Education Select Committee said the problem with retaining England’s social work talent must be tackled along with their ever-increasing workload.

Pat Winning is the deputy manager at the Open Door Centre in Gorse Hill which helps people with learning difficulties develop their independence. She said in 25 years she has seen the role of social worker dramatically shift.

“Social workers do a fantastic job and we are grateful for the support they give us, ultimately we can’t do our job without them on a day-to-day basis. I have seen social workers go from having that one-to-one contact to not having as personal an approach, simply because there aren’t enough of them,” she said.

“There are financial restrictions on them, there is stress from increasing workload, and it becoming more about paperwork.

“Sometimes there isn’t a social worker available, sometimes there’s no continuity with who handles a case and the care people receive is less personal than it was a few years ago. I get the challenges the social work profession is facing because it impacts on the work we do here.

“I’ve noticed a greater turnover of social workers because people do quit with stress.”

When approached, Swindon social workers were hesitant in discussing the challenges of the industry.

The committee report highlighted that vacancy rates had grown by a quarter in 2014, leaving 17 per cent of jobs unfilled in 2015 and leading to an increased reliance on agency workers.

Swindon Borough Council uses agency staff in its Children’s Services team but says it has reduced its usage from more than 30 per cent to under ten per cent.

The council has implemented a mentoring scheme for newly qualified social workers and set up management programme for career progression.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said:

“Recruitment and retention of children’s social workers on a permanent basis is a national issue, with an increasing demand for – and a reduced supply of – permanent staff, meaning councils all over the country have had to use often expensive agencies to source temporary staff.

“The council has worked to ensure that caseloads are manageable, by reducing bureaucracy and has recruited extra posts to reduce the size of caseloads for social workers overall.”

A spokesman for The British Association of Social Workers Union said caseloads had been at ‘unmanageable levels’ for at least four years.

“The Government’s new reforms do not focus enough on tackling the endemic retention problems. Poor working conditions, caused by high caseloads, negative media coverage and a dysfunctional ‘blame culture’, are driving experienced social workers from the profession.

“A survey in 2012 by BASW found that 77 per cent of respondents thought their caseloads were at an unmanageable level.”