Call to invest more in retention rather than training new social workers

Funding should be invested in retaining social workers rather than recruiting new entrants into the profession because of the high costs of training them, according to research.

A study, which was published in the British Journal of Social Work, has found that it costs twice or three times more to train a social worker than health professionals.

It costs around £20,097 a year to train a social worker, including placement supervision, living expenses and tuition fees, compared with £6,518 to train a nurse.

Researchers calculated the costs to be higher because social workers spend on average just 7.7 years in the job, compared with 16 for nurses and 25 for doctors.

‘Given the level of investment necessary to train social workers, this suggests it may be preferable to invest resources in policies to retain current (rather than recruit and train new) social workers,’ says the study.

The research also comments on the lack of robust workforce planning in social work, compared with the health service, where the government has tighter control on the number of places on qualifying programmes.

The Social Work Reform Board is currently devising a supply and demand workforce model for social work.

BASW England manager Ruth Cartwright welcomed the call for more investment in existing social workers but said the need to recruit new people to the profession remained. She said spending cuts were creating a confused picture about the level of need for training new social workers but that short term issues should not prevent a long term strategy.

“While the numbers recruited to university may well be right for a time when there was a shortage of social workers, because of the current reduction or freeze in posts there may be an over supply,” she said.

“However, this is not a permanent situation and is in the context of the numbers of social workers increasing over the years as need and demand increases, something which still applies – as, for example, with the growing numbers of older people.”

She added that BASW would be issuing guidance for newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) on seeking their first job, and would also make representations to employers and on policy forming groups about the dangers of short-termism in workforce planning.

View more details on the BJSW research findings