Social workers want review

Scottish social workers are calling for a "McCrone-style" review of pay and broader employment issues, to address the problems facing the service including staff shortages.

The McCrone inquiry into teachers' pay in Scotland lead to a long-term deal involving significant pay rises and changes in conditions of service.

Public services union UNISON argues that there have been no similar initiatives for social workers and wants a review to look at a range of issues.

These include pay, recruitment, training, retention and appropriate resources to enable staff to carry out their job effectively in safe conditions and with "a level of job satisfaction".

Stephen Smellie, chair of UNISON's social work issues group said: "Staff from qualified social workers to social work assistants face problems of large numbers of vacancies, increased stress and reducing support. These lead to problems of lack of back-up, increasing risks of violence, no time to train, increased pressure on unqualified staff."

He added: "Pay is a key issue in addressing such problems but not the only one. We think we need a full-scale review to look at training, the job of social workers and other staff, protection and other support".