Standard 3 is about ensuring that employees have safe workloads reflective of their experience and skill, resulting in better outcomes for adults, families and children using the social work service.
Managing workload quantity
Employers should:
- recognise that workload refers not only to the time spent with adults, families and children using the service, but also the associated administration, preparation and follow up. Workload also includes CPD and wider activities that form part of team and organisation-wide development
- use a system which has been agreed jointly with social work practitioners and line managers to set transparent safe working levels in each service area and enhances more direct relationship-based practice
- have work allocation policies which reflect that social workers will have different capacity based on their experience and length of service
- ensure a transparent system is in place to record all additional hours worked by individuals. This should be visible to strategic leads to prevent workload demands being hidden within staff working beyond their contracted hours.
Managing case complexity
Employers should:
- consider the complexity of workloads as well as the quantity
- draw on learning and best practice, including from other organisations who have developed caseload weighting systems to ensure a balance in the complexity of work that is reflective of experience, skills, knowledge and other factors (such as reasonable adjustments)
- recognise systemic challenges that some employees will face and the impact of this on safe workloads. Workload policies should be reflective of this and have processes in place to mitigate these impacts
- ensure that a social worker’s professional judgment about workload capacity issues is respected in line with the requirements of Social Work England’s professional standards and the requirement for a social worker to declare to the appropriate authority anything that might affect their ability to carry out their role competently or may affect their fitness to practise
- use digital tools and resources where available and appropriate to support workload allocation planning.
Linking case allocation and development
Employers should:
- recognise that complex work can serve as an opportunity for professional development when accompanied by adequate training, support and critically reflective supervision
- use case allocation tools and systems as part of supervision conversations with social workers about their areas for development.