The impact of increasing social worker caseloads

With a more than 10% increase in social worker caseloads, is there an increase in risk? Sarah-Erwin Jones looks at the potential problems.

Is there any money for preventative services?

All of us who deal with the risks arising out of children’s social care are waiting with bated breath for the outcome of the appeal in CN & GN v Poole Borough Council.

Most commentators agree that the effect of the latest decision in this case from the Court of Appeal is to undermine the legal basis for many ‘failure to remove’ claims. They accept that the Court of Appeal decision means local authorities cannot be said to owe an actionable duty of care in the exercise of child protection functions to investigate and prevent significant harm to children.

Whether that remains good law remains to be seen, but if the Supreme Court Justices uphold the decision, it may come as a financial relief to children’s social care budget holders. If they have to make cuts, the focus of those cut will inevitably be preventative services.

Figures published earlier this year by the Department for Education show the average number of cases per children and families social worker rose from 16.1 to 17.8 between 2016 and 2017. Social workers at 30 councils have average caseloads of 20 or more, while 15 had an average of 15 or fewer.

Of course, no two authorities are alike, and that presents challenges in understanding exactly what those figures mean. Some well-regarded authorities with good inspection reports can maintain larger numbers of cases because of the way the social work teams are structured, with support staff and so on. Nevertheless, this growing caseload, combined with 5% increase in social worker vacancies (nearly 6,000 posts), means that it is inevitable there will be less resource to offer preventative children’s services to children and families. Accordingly, there will be less capacity to observe children who might be at risk of neglect or physical abuse through stress in the family home, and less resource to support those families to make it through difficult periods of time. It is more likely that children will become avoidably harmed through neglect or abuse and, as matters currently stand following CN & GN, it is less likely that councils will be found liable in those circumstances, whatever the facts.

If, however, the Supreme Court reverses the effect of the Court of Appeal decision in CN & GN, then local authorities may find themselves in an invidious position.

On the one hand there will be insufficient resources to run an effective children’s social work team that provides both preventative social care and robust child protection services. On the other hand councils could still potentially be liable for those cases where children were harmed at home and where preventative services were inadequate to intervene sooner.

Alternatively the courts are going to have to accept the acceptable threshold for social work intervention must drop, simply because there are insufficient resources to offer the level of services that might have been available 10 or even 5 years ago.

Sarah Erwin-Jones is a partner at Browne Jacobson. She can be contacted on 0115 976 6136 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..