Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments at 30 September - England, 2006

The Personal Social Services staff of Social Services Departments return (SSDS001) was first collected in 1993 by the Department of Health (DH). Since 2004-05 the return has been the responsibility of The Information Centre for health and social care. The aim of the SSDS001 is to collect detailed information on all staff, whether full or part-time, directly employed by social services departments.

Main findings

• in September 2006, Councils with Social Services Responsibilities (CSSRs) in England employed 213,300 whole time equivalent (WTE) staff. This is 1 per cent less than in September 2005 and 7 per cent less than in September 1997
• the number of social work staff (40,100) was 22 per cent higher than in 1997 and 3 per cent higher than in 2005
• women account for 81 per cent of WTE staff compared to 20 per cent of men
• 50 per cent of all staff work on a part-time basis, down 24 per cent from 1997
• 86 per cent of all WTE staff are known to be white. 10 per cent are from non-white ethnic groups with 5 per cent known to be from black ethnic origin and 3 per cent are Asian
• a third of councils recorded more than the national average of 10 per cent for black and minority ethnic staff.

This report has information on staff employed by social services in English councils on 30 September 2006. It is broken down in a number of ways, including job role and ethnicity. It covers both childrens and adult services. Please note that in translating their numbers of part time staff into whole time equivalents (WTEs), councils were asked to make the calculations on the basis of a staff contractual week. For any grade where the council does not have a standard working week, WTEs were calculated on the basis of 39 (contractual) hours per week for care assistants, manual and domestic staff and 37 hours per week (36 in London) for other staff.

If you need more specific breakdowns of the data, have queries or would like to cite information contained within the report, please contact us at [email protected] or 0845 300 6016.

ISBN: 1-84636-130-3