Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments, England 2020

When completing the ASC-WDS, local authorities provide information on both the organisation as a whole, as well as more detailed information regarding individual workers.

This section of the publication concentrates on information about the characteristics of adult social services departments within local authorities, including statistics on the number of jobs, starters, leavers, vacancy rates and the employment status of their staff.

This publication predominantly discusses the total number of jobs in adult social services departments within local authorities. Two additional estimated values, Headcount (or the number of people) and Whole Time Equivalent, are also used. For further information on how these values are calculated, please see the data quality section later in the publication.

Jobs refers to the number of roles within a local authority recorded on ASC-WDS (not including vacancies)

Headcount refers to the number of people employed by the local authority who hold these jobs. This measure accounts for situations were an individual may hold more than one job

WTE or Whole Time Equivalent is calculated by dividing the number of working hours by 37 – so a person who works part time at 18.5 hours a week would be represented as 0.5 WTE. Anyone with more than 37 working hours is treated as one WTE.

As can be seen in Figure 2.1, jobs, headcount and WTE jobs within adult social services departments in local authorities have all shown a steady decrease each year between 2011 and 2017. In 2020 there was a year on year increase for the third year in a row; this is now broadly comparable with 2016 levels.

At local authority level the increase in 2020 is seen in just under half, with 44.4% (67 of 151 local authorities) reporting an increase in the total number of jobs from September 2019 to September 2020. The change in the number of jobs between 2019 and 2020 ranged from an increase of 400 to a decrease of 100.

This overall decreasing trend in jobs within local authorities is part of a wider pattern whereby jobs within local authorities have been decreasing, but jobs in the independent sector have been increasing, as reported by Skills for Care. Information on the number of jobs in 2020 in the independent sector, and the rest of the adult social care workforce, will be available from Skills for Care later in 2021.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 1 in Reference Data Tables

The total number of jobs was 114,100 as at September 2020. This figure has decreased by 45,300 jobs (28.4%) since 2011 and increased by 800 jobs (0.7%) since 2019.

Headcount has increased by 0.8% to 110,400 and WTE jobs have increased by 1.6% to 93,900 over the same period (September 2019 to September 2020).

Local authorities were asked to provide reasons for increases and decreases in the number of jobs reported this year compared to the previous year. In addition to providing reasons for changes in total jobs, local authorities were also asked for any other comments they wanted to make, including any structural changes that might not have affected the total number of jobs but the types of jobs within the local authority. Free text responses from local authorities were independently coded and verified by NHS Digital and Skills for Care.

Table 2.2: Reasons for differences in the total number of jobs between 2019 and 2020

¹Based on all 151 local authorities

²Local authorities can name more than one reason for changes in their total number of jobs

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - Reasons for Change Table

Table 2.2 above shows a breakdown of the responses local authorities provided for these queries. The most commonly stated reason for changes, accounting for both increases and decreases in the number of jobs was restructure, although other common responses were closures, COVID-19, and increases or reduction in agency or casual staff.

When looking at the responses from just those local authorities which had an increase in the number of jobs between 2019 and 2020, restructure, recruitment or filling vacancies, and COVID-19 were amongst the most commonly stated reason for the changes.

Local authorities provided the number of jobs split by a set list of 29 job roles. During the analysis stage, Skills for Care grouped these job roles into four job group categories; Direct care, Manager / Supervisor, Professional and Other (please refer to Appendix B for a list of job roles mapped to job role group).

In 2020, local authorities reported that there were 114,100 jobs in total.

Table 2.3: Total number of adult social services jobs, by job role group

¹2011 based on 138 local authorities (14 were estimated).

²2012 - 2018 based on all 152 local authorities confirming their total number of jobs.

³2019 - 2020 based on all 151 local authorities confirming their total number of jobs.

Please note: In 2019, local authorities reported that there were 113,250 jobs in total (rounded to 113,300 for ease of reading). The data used for job role specific analysis is based on 113,235 (rounded to 113,200 for ease of reading) individual worker records submitted by local authorities. Therefore, headline figures are reported using 113,300 jobs, whereas further analysis from this point forward is based on 113,200 jobs.

Number may not sum due to rounding.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 2 in Reference Data Tables and previous NMDS-SC Publications

Table 2.3 above shows that the change in the number of adult social services jobs, both between 2011 and 2020 and between 2019 and 2020 has not been evenly distributed in terms of jobs roles.

In 2020 around half of jobs (52,100 or 45.7%) were in direct care providing roles, and although total jobs increased between 2019 and 2020, direct care was the only job group which decreased over this period. Whilst jobs in direct care reduced by just 0.7% (400 jobs) between 2019 and 2020, this job role group has decreased overall by the most since 2011 (41.5% or 37,000 jobs).

Since 2011, all job role groups have decreased except for the Professional group which is the only group to have seen an increase over this period. In 2020 there were 21,200 jobs in the Professional job group which is the highest on record.

Manager / Supervisor, Professional and Other job role groups have all seen an increase in jobs since 2020, with the Manager / Supervisor job role group increasing by the most (5.1% or 900 jobs). Other job role group which saw the second highest increase (200 jobs or 1.0%) includes the following job roles: Administrative or office staff not care-providing, Ancillary staff not care-providing, Other non-care-providing job roles, Activities worker or co-ordinator, Occupational therapist assistant, Assessment officer, Care co-ordinator, Care navigator.

As seen in Figure 2.4 below, within local authorities there has been a gradual proportional shift away from direct care providing roles (55.9% in 2011 to 45.7% in 2020) into the other three job role groups. The Professional group has seen the largest proportion change, increasing from 12.4% in 2011 to 18.6% in 2020.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 2 in Reference Data Tables and previous NMDS-SC Publications

As at September 2020, within the local authority sector there were 21,200 jobs in the Professional job role group, this was predominantly made up of social workers jobs (17,500 or 82.2%).

Of the estimated 22,100 social worker jobs across the whole adult social care sector, including independent and the NHS, 79.0% are employed by the local authorities. In contrast local authority jobs only made up 6.9% of all adult social care jobs as at September 2020 (Skills for Care, 2020).

Table 2.6: Total number of local authority adult social services jobs as a proportion of all sector adult social services jobs, by job role group

Adult social care jobs are categorised by the 28 care service types offered. For the purposes of analysis these care services are then grouped into five main service groups; Adult Residential Care, Adult Day Care, Adult Domiciliary Care, Adult Community Care and Other Care Service (please refer to Appendix C for a mapping of care service to service group). Figure 2.7 shows the 2017 to 2020 breakdown of local authority adult social services jobs by main service group which describes the care setting for local authority staff.

This section covers starters, leavers and vacancy data for local authority adult social services staff. In 2020 the starter rate within local authorities was 14.5% (15,300 starters), while the turnover rate was slightly lower at 13.3% (14,000 leavers). This means that there was a higher number of people joining the organisation than leaving in the year, resulting in an increase in the number of jobs.

These figures come from the confirmations spreadsheet provided to Skills for Care by local authorities and will include all starters and leavers from teams that have been operating during the 12 months to September 2020.

In general, the turnover rates for staff within social care departments in local authorities are much lower than rates in the independent social care sector. Skills for Care analysis shows that the turnover rate in the independent sector in March 2020 was 33.5%.

Vacancy rates are calculated based on all local authorities who were able to provide this data. In September 2020 this information was available for all 151 local authorities (Please see Table 4 in the reference data for local authorities included in this metric). For more information on which local authorities were able to provide data, please consult the data quality section and tables which accompany this publication.

There were 6,600 vacant posts in adult social services departments within local authorities as at September 2020 the lowest since reporting began in 2011, and a decrease of 800 (11.1%) vacant posts since 2019.

This equates to a vacancy rate that is 5.9% of the total number of employees (directly employed) in 2020, comparable to September 2019, which showed a 6.7% vacancy rate, based on data from 150 of 151 local authorities.

As at September 2020, vacancy rates were highest for professional job roles, with a rate of 7.4% (1,600 vacant posts compared to 19,400 employees). When compared to 2019, all job role groups saw a decrease in vacancy rates, as seen in Figure 2.10 below.

Vacancy rate = Vacancies on completion date / (Vacancies on completion date + employees (permanent + temporary) on completion date).

2019 based on 150 of 151 local authorities and 2020 based on all 151 local authorities with vacancies data recorded.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS – See Table 4 in Reference Data Tables

In The State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England report, published in October 2020 by Skills for Care, professional roles also had the highest vacancy rate in the independent sector, at 11.8%. However, there was a different pattern to vacancy rates in this sector, compared to those within local authorities in September 2020. Direct care had the second highest vacancy rate at 7.9%, and managerial and other roles having comparatively lower vacancy rates at 5.4% and 3.9% respectively.

Within the professional job group, in 2020 the local authority vacancy rate was 7.5% for social workers (who make up most of this job group) and 7.1% for occupational therapists.

The majority (92.4%) of the 114,100 adult social services jobs as at September 2020 were permanent and temporary roles (directly employed by local authority).

The overall increase of 900 adult social services jobs between 2019 and 2020 was mostly driven by the increase in permanent employed workers which accounted for an 1,800 jobs increase since the previous year. Bank or Pool jobs accounted for the only other increase over the same period with 200 jobs.

2011 based on 123 local authorities, 2012 to 2018 based on all 152 local authorities, and 2019 to 2020 based on all 151 local authorities with employment status data recorded.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 5 in Reference Data Tables and previous NMDS-SC Publications

Figure 2.11 above shows that most of jobs (87.2%) were filled by staff on permanent contracts (99,500 jobs), with a further 5.2% of jobs filled by staff working on a temporary basis (6,000 jobs). The remaining 7.6% (8,600 jobs) were filled by casual workers or workers not directly employed by local authorities.

It should be noted that these figures refer to a snapshot as at the end of September 2020 and therefore the number of casual workers and agency staff utilised throughout the whole year is likely to vary possibly due to the short-term nature of these types of roles.

The employment status of the workforce has remained relatively stable between 2011 and 2020. The most notable change was a slight shift away from temporary jobs (down to 5.2% in 2020 from 8.0% in 2011) to ‘other’ employment types (up to 7.6% in 2020 from 5.0% in 2011). Between 2019 and 2020 the proportions for temporary and other staff have both reduced, whereas permanent staff has increased. Bank or Pool workers (which accounted for 60.5% of the ‘other’ employment status) showed an increase, with 200 jobs.

In terms of job role groups, employment status type did not vary greatly. Notably, a higher proportion of permanent workers were seen in managerial roles (91.4%) as seen in the chart below.

When analysing the ‘other’ employment status further (which includes ‘Bank or Pool’, ‘Agency’ and ‘Other’ workers), Direct care roles had the highest proportion of Bank or Pool workers (7.9%) and the professional group had the highest number of agency staff (7.3%). Please see Table 5 of the reference tables for further analysis.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 5 in Reference Data Tables

A zero-hours contract is a contract type where the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours. This contract type could be particularly attractive to adult social care employers to help manage fluctuating demand for services, or as a temporary solution to staff shortages due to turnover or sickness (Skills for Care, 2020).

In 2020, based on 150 of the 151 local authorities completing data, 6,400 (5.7% of all jobs) jobs were zero-hours contracts, this is a 35.0% increase since 2019. This looks to be driven by an improvement in recording data as well as a change in contract types offered over the reporting period.

Eight in ten (79.7%) of these zero-hours contracts jobs were described as ‘bank or pool’ (5,100) although 200 (3.8%) permanent and temporary workers were also on a zero-hours contract.

Chart 2.13 below shows all job role groups have seen a year on year increase in the proportion of zero hour contracts. By nature of the job types, the Direct care job role group continues to have the highest proportion of jobs with zero hours contracts at 8.8%.

The use of zero hours contracts within adult social services departments in local authorities is considerably lower than within the independent sector, as stated by Skills for Care in The State of the Adult Social Care Sector and Workforce in England, 2020 which reported that zero hours contracts represented 26.5% of all job roles in this sector in 2019/20.

2019 based on 151 and 2020 based on 150 local authorities with zero hours contract data recorded.

Source: Skills for Care - ASC-WDS - See Table 24 in Reference Data Tables