National Care Service: Justice Social Work research

3. Funding and resources

Key points

• In line with the literature review carried out for this report, challenges around resources came out as a strong theme across interviews with JSW teams and their professional partners.
• Multiple factors contribute to resourcing challenges, including: a perceived increase in expectations, demand and in the complexity of client needs; overall funding levels and sustainability; staff recruitment, absence and retention; availability and organisation of training; suitability of physical resources (including office space); issues around external services’ resources; and area-specific issues, including challenges arising from the geography of rural areas.

Resourcing issues had impacted JSW professionals in terms of their role and morale and ultimately were seen to impact on quality of service and support for clients.

Introduction and context

JSW in Scotland is funded through three main avenues: Scottish Government ring-fenced Criminal Justice grant to cover local authorities’ statutory demands, fixed at £86.45 million per year since at least 2010-11; transfers to local authorities from Scottish Government Community Justice budgets (estimated at £19.4m in 2021-22); and other funding sources, including local authorities’ own budgets.^[8]

JSW is the smallest of the social work professions in Scotland in terms of numbers of staff: in 2020, there were 937 main-grade or senior justice social workers (a slight increase from 898 in 2011).^[9] Including paraprofessionals and other support staff, the total headcount for the JSW workforce in 2022 was 2,030, down slightly from 2,100 in 2013.^[10] The size of JSW teams varies significantly between local authorities – across the case study areas included in this research, Glasgow have over 200 qualified social workers working in justice, while in contrast Argyll and Bute have around 13 justice social workers and 3-4 paraprofessionals.

The literature review conducted as part of this research highlights substantial resourcing challenges impacting on JSW and the wider social work workforce. Miller and Barrie have argued that a combination of external factors “have left much of the social work workforce with larger, more administratively demanding and less balanced caseloads comprising individuals with more challenging lives, often presenting higher levels of risk”.^[11] At the same time, resourcing pressures across the wider public and voluntary sector mean “there are fewer services available to connect people to”.^[12] These pressures are reflected in surveys of social workers: summarising findings from 2020-22, the Scottish Association of Social Workers found that “50% described their current caseload as ‘not at all’ manageable.”^[13]

This chapter explores views on resourcing in JSW across the six case study areas. It discusses the various, often interlinked, elements believed to be contributing to resourcing challenges in JSW and considers the impacts of these issues for JSW staff, their partners and clients. Finally, it summarises participants’ suggestions for tackling these resourcing challenges.

Factors impacting on resourcing

Increased need, demand and expectation

Challenges around resources were a strong theme in interviews with JSW teams and their professional partners across all case study areas. Echoing the literature review, there was a clear perception that demands on JSW have increased but that resources have not kept pace with this demand, reflecting a range of factors elaborated on below.

“If you look at what’s expected of Criminal Justice Social Workers from even ten years ago to what they’re expected to do now … the work that’s placed on social workers is absolutely massive.” (Senior managers / team leaders interview 8)

This increased need and demand related partly to a perceived increase in the complexity of client needs reflecting external factors (such as the cost of living crisis impacting on deprivation levels) and partly to the changing policy and legislative context for JSW. Specific examples of the latter included: the perceived increased complexity and length of risk assessments and associated paperwork; the volume of MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) meetings; the increased volume of Community Payback Orders (as a result of the Scottish Government’s policy of limiting the use of short-term sentences)^[14]; and new responsibilities stemming from policies around diversion from prosecution. While these broader policy developments were generally welcomed in terms of their potential to improve outcomes, they contributed to an expanded JSW workload. JSW staff also felt they were still dealing with a backlog of cases as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, which were contributing to high workloads.

Increased bureaucracy and paperwork was a particular issue for justice social workers, who not only reported having far more paperwork to complete but that administrative support resources had been cut back over time. One view was that an increased risk aversion across the public sector as a whole had led to a greater focus on “form-filling” and evidencing every decision, without proper consideration of the impact of this on capacity to deliver more therapeutic aspects of JSW. There was also a perception that the Covid-19 pandemic had created a backlog of cases which had contributed to increased workload in more recent years.

Funding levels

In the context of increasing demand and expectations, the overall level of funding available to deliver JSW was seen as falling short of what is needed. While it was acknowledged that additional funding was sometimes made available to take account of new JSW responsibilities, there was a perception that this was often insufficient. As an example, a senior manager argued that the £700 they received for managing a diversion from prosecution simply did not reflect the amount of staff time this required and was based on an outdated funding formula. Team leaders in another area estimated that they would need around 3-4 additional justice social workers per team in order to deliver all that was currently expected of them effectively and without staff burnout.

In addition to comments on the overall level of funding, JSW professionals noted that funding was not always provided on a sustainable basis, both in terms of short-term Scottish Government grants and additional local authority funding for JSW. There was also some frustration with restrictions on how JSW funding can be spent, with a desire for more resource to be allocated to preventative work. However, at the same time it was felt that maintaining the current level of statutory service would be challenging if resources were diverted to prevention (and no additional resource was made available).

Staff recruitment, absence and retention

“The main challenge is not what we do, but who we have available to do the work”. (Justice social workers interview 5)

At the same time as there was a perceived need to increase the size of JSW teams in response to increased demand, staff recruitment, sickness absence and retention were also identified as major challenges that were creating very significant issues in terms of JSW teams’ workloads and ability to deliver for clients. Pay rates (including variations in pay rates between neighbouring areas) for JSW were perceived to be a significant barrier to recruitment, particularly for areas with high housing costs. Fluctuations in budgets also made it difficult for some JSW teams to plan recruitment.

"If you want a stable workforce you need a stable budget" (Senior managers / team leaders interview 13)

Views on the intensity of issues with recruitment and retention varied between case study areas and, to a degree, within areas, with justice social workers and paraprofessionals sometimes raising these issues to a greater extent than senior staff. However, overall there was a perception that resourcing issues have become a vicious circle for some JSW teams, with heavy workload resulting in both higher levels of sick leave and difficulties with staff retention, which in turn increases workload among remaining staff. Meanwhile, high workloads reportedly acted as a barrier to teams offering places to students to shadow JSW teams, which had negative impacts for the pool of people available to recruit from subsequently.

Even without these additional issues, there was a perception that it can be hard to find workers with the right set of skills for JSW. Justice social workers and their wider professional partners describe the profession as highly skilled and specialised, with specific risk assessment training and a considerable amount of hands-on experience required to properly fulfil the role, meaning that new recruits were rarely able to take on a full workload immediately. In this context, the availability and timeliness of training was also a resourcing issue.

Training

Training was raised as a resourcing issue both in terms of availability and the impact that attending training has on wider team resources. There were mixed opinions both between and within case study areas on whether current training was sufficient to meet the needs of JSW. One view was that consistency and availability of training had improved since Community Justice Scotland(CJS) took over responsibility for delivering this nationally. However, others expressed the opposite opinion with respect to availability, reporting long waits to access mandatory national training courses to enable staff to start fully exercising their professional responsibilities:

“I think probably since training was taken over as a national thing it is been a bit of a disaster really and scheduling of training courses and availability of places in training courses it’s really not fit for purpose. And for basic risk assessment training that everybody needs you can be waiting for ages for it so you leave staff and service users really vulnerable to the quality of work they are able to do […] I think training was much better whenever we had a little bit of local control on it” (Senior managers / team leaders interview 1)

It is important to note that where issues were raised in relation to CJS training, these were specifically focused on accessibility and frequency, and not on quality. Feedback from attendees shared by CJS indicates very positive views on the quality of their training provision.

The Covid-19 pandemic was also believed to have had an impact on training availability in recent years. Justice Social Workers commented on the perceived lack of a clear ‘national pathway’ for JSW courses, while support workers thought the options available to those who wanted to train to be justice social workers had narrowed, with no option to progress professionally without enrolling in formal university-based courses. It is worth noting that the Scottish Government and others are currently developing an Advanced Social Work Practitioner Framework for social work, which may be a vehicle for providing a clearer national pathway.

The current organisation and location of national training courses was also seen as exacerbating more immediate resourcing challenges within JSW teams. Lack of resource made it difficult for staff to find the time to access the training they needed to provide the best quality service for clients. It was suggested that this was a particularly acute issue for those based furthest from the central belt. As an example, it was noted that the current Unpaid Work training course runs over five consecutive days, which for those outside the central belt may involve significant travel and overnight stays and knock-on impacts for the wider team covering their work. There was also a perception that the training courses on offer nationally were not always appropriate to delivery in a rural setting – for example, domestic abuse programme training was felt to focus on group work which is not always feasible in remote areas.

Physical resources

In addition to resourcing related to staff numbers and time, participants also discussed issues relating to the physical resources available to JSW teams. In particular, justice social workers mentioned concerns about office spaces not being fit for purpose, particularly in terms of spaces for confidential conversations. It was noted that some offices previously used by JSW had not re-opened after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, while other JSW teams had switched to “agile working” or “hot-desking” which again was not always seen as suitable from a confidentiality perspective. Budget restrictions also reportedly impacted on physical equipment available to JSW teams in some areas, from outdated laptops to vehicles used by unpaid work teams not being fit for purpose.

External resources

Wider resourcing pressures in the public and third sectors have been well documented in recent years, and the impacts of partners’ resources for JSW was discussed at some length in interviews. This is covered in chapter 4, which focuses on partnership working.

Geography

While all case study areas discussed issues around resourcing, the precise nature of these issues varied. For example, JSW professionals in Glasgow discussed the significant workload and resourcing challenges associated with a very large and complex caseload, including many clients with acute and multiple additional needs (relating to particularly high levels poverty, substance misuse, etc.). Meanwhile, those covering more rural areas (particularly Highland and Argyll and Bute, but also parts of Fife and South Lanarkshire) discussed the ways in which rural geography compounded or complicated resourcing of their services. Issues included: substantial additional travel time and costs for both professionals and clients; a lack of third sector partners (discussed in chapter 4); and challenges attracting a qualified workforce to more remote areas.

“There are unique challenges in [NAME OF AREA] because of the sheer complexity of our geography, much more complex than delivering services in the central belt, much more expensive. And the planning is more complicated because what you do in [urban area] will look quite different from [remote rural area] and often some of the policies are very central-belt-centric” (Senior managers / team leaders interview 14)

Specific examples of policies perceived as ‘central-belt centric’ that were perceived to add to the challenges of delivering effectively within current resources included requirements for face-to-face bail supervision meetings three times a week, which were difficult to meet when clients were extremely geographically dispersed. The design of national programmes delivered by JSW, such as the Caledonian System domestic abuse programme and Moving Forward: Making Changes for those convicted of sexual offences, was also viewed as ‘central-belt centric’. Both are designed to be structured around face-to-face group work sessions, which again was viewed as much more challenging to implement with a dispersed population. The relatively smaller size and geographic dispersal of JSW teams across areas like Argyll and Bute and Highland was also seen as creating specific challenges around covering any gaps in staffing as a result of retention or sickness issues.

Impacts of resourcing issues

Resourcing issues were felt to have very substantial impacts on JSW professionals’ ability to deliver their role and, by extension, secure positive outcomes for their clients (impacts on partner organisations are discussed in the following chapter).

For JSW professionals

“We are not designed for cutting corners” (Senior managers / team leaders interview 10)

The central impact of these resourcing issues for justice social workers was feeling that they could not do their job in the way they would wish, either at all or in a way that was sustainable for their own work-life balance. As noted in chapter 2, there was a perception that the role of JSW had become squeezed due to resourcing pressures, with the time required for risk-management, governance and paperwork to meet key targets leaving them with less time to do the rehabilitation or desistance-focused work that they viewed as core to their role and ethos, and still less to invest in prevention.

“the time you’ve got is really limited […] I think the offence focus[ed] work, which is the whole purpose of why we are doing the job in the first place really – to reduce offending – it is what takes a back seat, unfortunately” (Justice social workers interview 6)

In rural areas, where there were fewer additional third sector resources to provide support to clients, it was suggested that this was both “a challenge and a strength in a way”, in that JSW teams were still spending substantial time doing one-to-one rehabilitative or desistance-focused work as there was no one else to provide this, resulting in “strong connections” with clients. However, the workload pressures on individuals and teams were felt to have become extremely difficult to sustain: as one rural team leader put it, “it does reach breaking point”. These views closely align with those found in Miller and Barrie, where social workers reported that the least satisfying things about their job was the high caseload, high administrative workload as well as the lack of time for preventative work (less than 16% of respondents felt they had enough time for preventative work).^[15]

Where there was a perceived lack of suitable office space for JSW teams, this was also felt to be impacting negatively on new social workers, by restricting opportunities to shadow, work with and learn from others. In addition, there were concerns that remote working was reducing networking opportunities, impacting on information sharing (and by extension risk management), and could ultimately make workers more vulnerable to mental health issues such as burnout and vicarious trauma. More generally, although there were examples of participants who felt their area did a good job of supporting staff, there was some concern about the level of support to help JSW professionals deliver a highly demanding role and workload.

For clients

For JSW professionals and their partners, the most significant impact of all the resourcing issues discussed above was on the effectiveness of the support provided to clients, discussed further in chapter 6. This in turn was believed to translate into increased risk and lower success rates for Community Payback Orders. At the more extreme end of these impacts, a professional partner cited examples where they understood that people had not been released from prison because of a perceived lack of sufficient support within the community to facilitate a safe transition.

Clients interviewed for this study also reflected on the impacts of resourcing issues on the quality of support that they received from JSW – discussed further in chapter 6.

Suggestions for improvement

• Increased and more sustainable funding – ultimately, resolving the issues above was seen to require additional, sustainable funding, rather than "short-term non-recurrent pots of cash.” As one participant put it, “sometimes it is about people but ultimately is about funding”. However, it was recognised that many of these challenges are not unique to JSW and reflect the wider financial landscape for public services; one participant reflected that there needed to be more honesty about what can actually be done within the resources that are available.
• Holistic review of staffing requirements and challenges – reflecting the point above, it was suggested that there needs to be a holistic review of both the level of staffing needed to properly fulfil JSW’s role, and the challenges around recruiting sufficient staff. The latter should take account not only of pay but also of wider issues such as differing local housing contexts and routes into social work (there was a perception that if people have to move from a rural area to a city to qualify, they are less likely to end up returning to work in a rural area).
• More flexibility within resources that are available – while funding was clearly seen as central, it was also suggested that having the flexibility to use funding in different, more imaginative or innovative ways, would help improve JSW. This was discussed by senior leaders in the context of funding being allocated for specific purposes, which was seen as potentially stifling creativity within JSW.^[16]
• More administrative support – as discussed above, the volume of paperwork/administrative tasks was identified as a particular frustration for justice social workers, impacting on both morale and time for desistance-focused work. There was a strong desire for the level of administrative support to be increased to be more in line with previous provision to teams.
• More support staff – to help with both administration and practical issues around case management.
• Reducing the burden of administration – as well as providing additional support staff, it was suggested that administrative tasks also needed to be made less repetitive and time-consuming in themselves.
• Improvements to office spaces and working practices, such as improved access to confidential meeting spaces, and considering whether ‘hot desking’ is appropriate for JSW teams.
• Updating physical equipment, such as laptops and vehicles, where needed.
• Reviewing the availability and suitability of current training – including ensuring there are sufficient places available and that they meet the needs of those outside the central belt, both in terms of location and relevance to the services they deliver (for example, taking account of barriers to delivering interventions via group work in rural areas).
• Improved mental health support for JSW teams – as discussed above, there was a perception that there could be better support structures for JSW professionals, both locally and nationally.