Leeds City Council refuses to comment on social worker grievance claims

Senior figures in charge of Leeds City Council's Children’s Services department said they would not be drawn on “confidential HR matters” when publicly asked whether or not they had received a grievance.

Conservative councillor Ryan Stephenson, who raised the issue at a scrutiny meeting on Wednesday, criticised the response, later tweeting that getting an answer was “in the public interest”.

Unite, the trade union that represents social workers on the council, has been contacted for comment.

The council’s portfolio holder for children and young people also furiously denied Coun Stephenson’s subsequent claim that there was a “cover-up” within the service.

Coun Fiona Venner pointed to Ofsted’s recent rating of the service as ‘outstanding’, which is extremely rare among local authorities, as evidence of good practice.

Speaking at the meeting, Coun Stephenson suggested frontline social workers were handling an average of 40 caseloads each.

Panel members had earlier been told the number was 21, though Coun Stephenson suggested this was skewed by advance practitioners within the department, who generally handle fewer cases.

Asked about the 40 figure specifically, Julie Longworth, deputy director for children and families, said: “That’s not my understanding. But what we have said and what we’ve acknowledged with Ofsted is that, in some cases, the caseloads for social workers are not where we want them to be and that’s a national challenge.

“It’s a challenge that’s being faced by every local authority.”

Coun Stephenson then asked: “Can you confirm that there’s a live grievance that you’ve received regarding caseloads, and that part of that grievance is that frontline social workers are concerned they can’t ensure safeguarding of children in the city, because of the high numbers of caseloads?”

Ms Longworth replied: “We wouldn’t comment in a public forum such as this around any individual grievances such as this. That’s not what we’d do.”

When Coun Stephenson repeated the question, Coun Venner said: “Julie has been very clear here that it’s not appropriate to comment on confidential HR matters and we won’t comment further,” before adding that the scrutiny board chair could be “briefed in private” over issues happening within the service.

Coun Stephenson replied: “I’ve not asked for any individual HR information.

“I’ve asked a very simple question around whether employees of this council have raised concerns with the leaders here and if the leaders aren’t prepared to tell us there are concerns being raised, how are we meant to scrutinise the actions of the leaders?

“I’d like some legal advice at some point please around the role of scrutiny and how we get this information to stop the cover-ups.”

A furious Coun Venner then interjected: “That is really inappropriate. It’s not a cover-up. I’ve said we’ll talk privately to the chair and we’ll discuss with him the most appropriate way of involving scrutiny, but we’re not at this meeting going to comment on what is a confidential HR matter.”

In its report on children’s services in Leeds, published in May, Ofsted said caseloads had been driven up by a rise in referrals at a time of “increased staff sickness and vacancy levels”.

However, it said the “quality of core social work practice remains exceptionally high and thorough”.