Risks posed to vulnerable children due to social worker vacancies escalated by Highland Council
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The risk posed by a 41 per cent vacancy rate in social workers has led Highland Council’s health and social care committee to call for the problem to be entered on the corporate risk register.
That means the audit and scrutiny committee would check progress every three months in a bid to establish ways to use the organisation to tackle the dangers posed.
The alarm was sounded in a dire report by the head of integration adult social care Fiona Malcolm, who says that most of the empty positions are within the families team responsible “for care and protection concerns in relation to children”.
She said that presents a “critical to catastrophic” risk that the council may be unable to properly protect children including those “children who are at risk of significant harm”.
Ms Malcolm added that the risk is “considered to be high to very high in terms of the council’s risk matrix and the impact could be described as critical to catastrophic in terms of risk to people and the associated risk to the council’s reputation”.
Members on the health and social care committee decided to ask that the audit and scrutiny committee consider including social work vacancies on the corporate risk register.
A local authority spokesperson said: “In doing so, Highland Council would clearly be recognising its role and responsibility in accepting ownership of the risk and that the burden of this does not sit on the shoulders of staff.”
The health and social care committee chairman David Fraser said: “We wholeheartedly support the existing health and social care workforce and recognise their tremendous efforts in maintaining safe levels of practice and high standards despite the squeeze on resources and a reduced overall workforce within the service.
“Their additional efforts are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the public and all client groups are kept safe while we take steps to bring the situation onto a more steady-footing”.
“This report, while the reality is equally sobering and concerning, produced some valuable and varied debate across the chamber.
“Additionally, there were some worthy contributions put forward to compliment the strategies already under consideration to tackle the core issues – these will be explored and considered for feasibility".
