Children's Social Workers exit interviews (FOI)

Request

Please could we have in relation to Children’s Services and Care:

A

The number of exit interviews conducted with social workers since 2018, broken down by year.

A list of the reasons given by social workers for leaving their role during an exit interview, broken down by year since 2018.

The number of social workers who said they were satisfied with their time in the role during their exit interview, broken down by year since 2018.

The number of social workers who said they were not satisfied with their time in the role during their exit interview, broken down by year since 2018.

B

The amount of complaints made by social workers, broken down by year since 2018.

A list of the subjects of complaints made by social workers, broken down by year since 2018.

C

The number of social workers who have departed the role, broken down by year since 2018.

D

The average amount of time a permanent social worker stays in the role for.

E

The current total social worker roles in the Children’s Service, broken down by vacant and occupied.

Response

A

Exit interviews are a voluntary process. Since 2018, five on-line exit interviews have been submitted by social workers. One-to-one exit interviews also take place, however these numbers are not held centrally. The Department have determined that to release information regarding reasons for leaving and satisfaction in the role would likely breach the privacy of individuals and therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

B

From the interpretation of the question, we do not believe this information is held centrally within our systems.

Any breakdowns of complaints would require extraction and manipulation of data, which would take more than the prescribed 12.5 hours to do the work. Article 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has therefore been applied.

C

The table below represents the number of social workers departing the role broken down by year since 2018. The Department have determined that to release the number where this is fewer than five would likely breach the privacy of individuals and therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

The table includes the full spread of agency and permanent social work qualified roles as per the table in Q.E below.

The high number of agency colleagues who departed in 2020 is directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic, over a period of four months (March-June), 17 agency colleagues left to return to the UK to be with family.

D

The current average length of service for the permanent social worker workforce is 6.7 years.

E

The table below represents the current total social worker roles in the Children’s Service broken down by total headcount, permanently employed, agency employed and vacancies as at the end of July 2021.

*Where roles which we are over headcount, this can be because of cross-over of new joiners and leavers.

Although we have 26 vacancies, only four are truly vacant as the others are currently occupied by agency colleagues.

Articles Applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 16 - A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

Regulation 2 (1) of the Freedom of Information (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014 allows an authority to refuse a request for information where the estimated cost of dealing with the request would exceed the specified amount of the cost limit of £500. This is the estimated cost of one person spending 12.5 working hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.