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 | | Friday, 18 January, 2002, 06:28 GMT Social workers' pay plea  Social workers help many groups in society The Scottish National Party has called for a radical review of social workers' pay to solve a growing crisis in the profession. The party claims vulnerable children are being let down because more than three quarters of councils are unable to fill social work vacancies. The number of people applying to become social workers has halved in five years. The SNP has published research which suggests that almost 80% of local authorities are concerned about recruitment - and that the situation appears to be worse where the need is greatest.
In Glasgow, where child poverty is highest, almost a quarter of posts are unfilled. SNP leader John Swinney has called for an urgent review of pay and conditions. He said there needed to be a campaign to improve the profession's public image if the crisis in social work was to be tackled. Low pay and long hours have been cited as factors putting people off becoming social workers in Scotland. The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) has called on the Scottish Executive to invest more in social work and create better conditions for existing workers. The BASW warned that experienced staff in their mid-40s have been leaving the profession through stress-related illnesses. The body claimed that because of a shortage of staff, childcare, criminal justice, mental health and community care cases were not being allocated. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Scotland stories now:  Links to more Scotland stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||
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