Social workers in England are waiting longer for decisions on whether their fitness to practise (FtP) will be investigated following a referral to the regulator.
Cases that completed the triage stage in October to December 2024 took an average of 35 weeks to do so, compared with 28 weeks in July to September and 22 weeks in April to June last year, according to a report to Social Work England's board meeting on 31 January this year.
Issues at triage stage
And the number of cases that completed triage per quarter fell significantly over this time, from 350 in April to June to 291 in the last quarter of 2024.
At triage, Social Work England staff determine if there are reasonable grounds to investigate concerns about a practitioner and whether the concerns suggest the social worker’s fitness to practise is currently impaired.
If these tests are met, the social worker's case is passed on to the regulator's investigations team to look into, but in most cases they are not. In October to December 2024, 81% of cases were closed at the triage stage.
Increasing caseload
While the average age of the remaining triage caseload fell slightly, from 29 to 28 weeks, in October to December 2024, this was well above the target for the quarter of 16 weeks.
Also, the number of open triage cases rose from 1,070 to 1,110 in the last quarter of 2024. By comparison, at the end of 2023, there were 945 open cases in triage.
The trends have been driven by staffing and management shortages within Social Work England's triage team.
The regulator recruited six new staff into the team last year in order to boost its capacity. However, it told Community Care that, because of other staff leaving or moving roles, the new recruits were used to replace them, rather than to add capacity.
A spokesperson said that the timeliness of cases had also been affected by the regulator's "careful management of concerns that reference family court proceedings", adding that it was "confident that decision-making is high-quality, proportionate and effective".
Addressing staff and management shortages
The board report said that a new assistant director joined towards the end of 2024, and a new head of service has joined since.
The spokesperson said that, as well having a new senior team in place, the regulator was increasing capacity within the triage service by recruiting more cases officers and an additional triage lead and manager.
"The new management team will be developing longer-term plans to address performance trends seen over the past 12 months," the spokesperson added.
Length of fitness to practise investigations
The issues at triage come in the context of longstanding challenges in relation to the timeliness of fitness to practise cases at all stages of the process.
While the average age of cases that completed the investigations process has fallen steadily, from 68 weeks in January to March 2024 to 60 weeks in October to December last year, the average age of remaining cases rose from 62 to 74 weeks over this time. This compares to a quarterly target of 56 weeks for October to December 2024.
Social Work England said this reflected "both the time cases are taking to conclude at triage, and several longstanding investigations that are taking time to resolve". It has also faced staffing and management shortages in the investigations service.
Performance at case examiner stage
During October to December 2024, cases took an average of 13 weeks to complete the case examiner process, the same as in the previous quarter and just above the target of 12 weeks.
At this stage, pairs of staff examine the investigation report to determine whether there is a realistic prospect that concerns could be proved, and if so, whether the social worker's fitness to practise could be found to be impaired.
It said performance in this area had been affected by about 15% of cases requiring support from the regulator's legal team, generally in relation to the use of family court information.
Reduced capacity for hearings
An ongoing challenge facing Social Work England has been its reduced capacity - driven by budget constraints - to hold final hearings to determine a social worker's fitness to practise.
It held just five such hearings in October to December 2024, down from 13 in the previous two quarters, and from 64 in April to June 2023. The number of open cases at the hearings stage has risen from 386 as of June 2024 to 421 at the end of the year.
How long social workers are waiting
The average age of these cases was 176 weeks with the social workers concerned having waited an average of 125 weeks - two years and five months - since they had been referred for a hearing. These figures had risen from 148 and 69 weeks, respectively, a year previously.
At the start of the 2024-25 financial year, Social Work England budgeted to hold just 34 hearings in 2024-25. However, in September last year, it increased this to 81, after identifying additional capacity in its budget following a mid-year review.
The regulator's spokesperson said that 74 of those had been concluded or listed to be heard before the end of March 2025.
While, 81 remained its target for the year, the spokesperson added that this was dependent on the availability of parties, witnesses and legal resource, which, according to the board report, Social Work England had faced challenges in securing.
