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Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments at 30 September - England, 2013
National statistics- Publication Date:
- 27 Feb 2014
- Geographic Coverage:
- England
- Geographical Granularity:
- Local Authorities, Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs)
- Date Range:
- 09 Sep 2013 to 30 Sep 2013
Summary
This report contains information on staff employed (directly and indirectly) by adult social services departments in England as at September 2013. It will be of interest to central government (for policy development, monitoring and workforce planning), local government (for benchmarking), lobbying organisations, academics and the general public. The report does not include information on staff employed in the independent sector (private and voluntary) or children's social services departments which is published by the Department for Education.
This report has used data collected by the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) for the past three years (from 2011). The NMDS-SC is managed by Skills for Care (SfC) on behalf of the Department of Health and has been collecting information about social care providers and their staff since early 2006.
Before 2011 the data source used for this report was the Health and Social Care Information Centre's 'Personal Social Services Staff of Social Services Departments' return (SSDS001). Following a user wide consultation it was decided that the NMDS-SC would replace the SSDS001 from September 2011 as the adult social care workforce data return for councils.
The NMDS-SC data in this report are not directly comparable with data from the SSDS001 because the SSDS001 covered both adults and children's services and this report focuses solely on adults. The adult job classifications are also very different between the two sources. Trends prior to 2011 are therefore not provided in this report.
Highlights
- As at September 2013 there were 140,700 adult social services jobs in councils in England. There was an overall decrease of 10,000 adult social services jobs between 2012 and 2013 (seven per cent decrease from 150,700 jobs in 2012).
- For around two-thirds of councils (101 out of 152) the number of adult social services jobs reduced between 2012 and 2013. The reasons for these reductions are not known for the majority of councils (77 councils or 57 per cent of jobs). Of the 24 councils that did provide reasons, nine councils cited outsourcing as the reason for the fall (31 per cent of jobs), 14 councils reduced due to restructures and redundancies (11 per cent of jobs) and one council reduced due to a combination of both (one per cent of jobs).
- As at September 2013 there were 16,500 social worker jobs in councils (a decrease of less than one per cent from 2012). The number of whole time equivalent (WTE) social worker jobs increased by two per cent from 14,500 in 2012 to 14,800 in 2013.
- The majority of adult social services jobs saw a decrease in 'real term' pay between 2012 and 2013. Care worker WTE pay decreased by two per cent in real terms from £17,600 to £17,200 between 2012 and 2013. Social worker WTE pay also decreased by two per cent in real terms from £32,600 in 2012 to £31,900 in 2013.
- Between 2012 and 2013, the demographic profile of the council workforce remained relatively stable with 82 per cent of jobs filled by female workers and 18 per cent by males and the average age of all workers was 47 years old in both years.
- 87 per cent of the 140,700 adult social services jobs in 2013 were carried out by White workers, 13 per cent were carried out by workers from Black and Minority Ethnic groups. This distribution has changed by one percentage point from 2012 where 88 per cent of jobs were carried out by White workers and 12 per cent by workers from Black and Minority Ethnic groups.
Resources
Last edited: 4 August 2021 1:12 pm