Emergency duty service social workers have paused strike action following concerns that urgent calls were not being responded to in their absence.
The Swindon council practitioners returned to work on Monday (11 September) after their union, the GMB, reported that safeguarding concerns had not been dealt with by the authority.
It claimed that calls from the police raising concerns about a woman vulnerable to exploitation, from a local hospital about a child using recreational drugs and from a nurse about a young person with a worrying presentation all went unanswered.
And the union said that the council had rebuffed its offers to negotiate cover for the social workers while they were on strike.
Community Care has approached Swindon council for a response to the claims but it had not provided one at the time of publication.
Emergency calls 'missed'
“Our members are dedicated professionals," said GMB branch secretary Andy Newman."Last week, they became aware that emergency calls had been missed during strikes, despite assurances from the employer that adequate cover was in place. Four calls that were missed were very serious concerning child safeguarding, and a vulnerable female at risk of exploitation.
“Staff raised their concerns with management, in an appropriate manner, but got no reply."
This is the second time practitioners have paused strike action since they first walked out on 31 August on what was due to be a two-week strike.
Dispute over removal of out-of-hours payment
The seven social workers voted to take action in response to the removal of a 20% annual supplement to their salaries that they received for working out of hours, following a pay and reward review commissioned by the authority.Though staff members earned different amounts previously, the GMB said that this would amount to a loss of £8,400 for practitioners on average, based on a representative salary of £42,000 a year.
As part of the review, Swindon also proposed increasing base pay to £46,549 and offering a 30% allowance for hours worked between 10pm and 6am, which the authority said would be worth at least £4,000 to practitioners.
Social workers 'would be at least £3,000 a year better off'
It has since agreed to increase base pay for the seven practitioners to £49,590, which it said meant a representative staff member previously earning £42,000 a year would be £3,000 better off annually than under the old system.However, despite the GMB saying that the offer was "broadly acceptable", practitioners have persisted in taking action over concerns that the money was not guaranteed.
The council has rejected this, saying that the changes to pay are permanent and cannot be removed.
The GMB said it has proposed referring the dispute to conciliation body ACAS to achieve a resolution.
