News In The Hebden Bridge List

Demoralised Workforce Angry Over Reliance On Agency Staff

Calderdale Council’s heavily criticised child protection services have suffered another blow, as staff have revealed their frustration at the Council’s decision to pay agency staff double the hourly rate of permanent social workers.

A recent workforce survey found that only one in ten of all council staff has confidence in the decisions made by Calderdale councillors. Now members of the child protection team, who wish to remain anonymous, have revealed just how demoralised frontline workers are after a recent report revealed that many have “no confidence” in the Council’s child protection system.

“We have lost a lot of good social workers and the Council is not replacing them like for like,” said one social worker.

“Instead we are relying on inexperienced agency workers to plug the gaps. I’m paid £11 an hour and I have to train agency workers and tell them how to do the job when they’re paid £25 an hour. As you can imagine we’re all pretty fed up.”

As part of an improvement board set up in the wake of damning criticism of child protection failings in Calderdale, the Council has stated that it now wants to recruit 10 extra social workers. These jobs are currently being advertised on the Council’s website. Successful candidates will be offered a relocation package of up to £5,000 and a golden hello payment of £2,000 for newly qualified social workers.

When questions about agency staff being paid more than double that of permanent staff were put to Calderdale Council, they declined comment. Neither did they respond to the question of exactly what proportion of agency staff were being employed by child protection services.

Last week the portfolio holder for Children and Young People’s Services, Councillor Craig Whittaker, told a council meeting that he would not be resigning and that those asking for him to do so were “squealing rats”.