This week’s Panorama programme highlighted yet again the stress and
pressure put on social workers in children’s services.

Councils year on year have to find cost savings: here in Hertfordshire the
solution was to replace social workers with case workers. Case workers are
not trained in social care but trained by the council to manage cases. This
practice has now stopped but recruiting social workers is proving difficult
so the situation has not improved.

Chris White, Liberal Democrat group leader, said: ‘We have been highlighting
this issue for years. We need well paid, well trained, highly qualified
social workers to protect our most vulnerable children. This year the
Liberal Democrats supported the proposals to increase funding for social
workers but also added yet more money to the budget for increases in social
workers’ pay.

‘Sadly this was rejected by the Conservatives and Labour.’

You can see Panorama on BBC iplay: http://tiny.cc/oUQSn