Market Position Statement 2025-2040 Introduction - Workforce
Adult Social Care Workforce
Nationally the Adult Social Care Workforce is estimated to be 1.59 million employees with 4.2% more filled posts in 2023-224 than the previous year. International recruitment has played a role in this with an estimated 105,000 international recruits working in the sector. However, there are an estimated 131,000 vacancies on any one day (8.3%). (Skills for Care, 2024). The Adult Social Care workforce in Walsall is diverse and includes employees working directly for the Council, employees working for care providers commissioned by the Council, those people employed via a direct payment, such as personal assistants, and care staff employed as part of any integrated arrangements with health bodies. There were approximately 8,500 jobs across the Adult Social Care workforce in Walsall in 2023/24, this figure encompassing both Walsall Council’s Adult Social Care workforce and the independent provider market. 7,700 of these posts were filled and 800 vacant (Skills for Care, 2024).
As is the case nationally, the Council has experienced significant issues in terms of the external social care workforce who work for our care providers in Walsall. There are high levels of vacancies and staff turnover rates in the care sector, which could be attributed to the local availability of less stressful jobs, for example, in retail, hospitality and warehouses. These roles offer the same, or better, rates of pay which impacts on the recruitment and retention of staff.
There are also challenges and opportunities in ensuring a pipeline of new recruits to the care and support sector. It is a sector that is not always seen as attractive as the NHS, for example and people often leave the sector to pursue what are seen as more structured career paths in the NHS. As an overarching priority, we are committed to training and development of the social care workforce in Walsall to support market sustainability and the local workforce and economy. Projections show that, regionally we will need 26% more posts by 2040 (from 194,000 to 245,000 posts) if the number of adult social care posts grows proportionally to the projected number of people aged over 65 in the population, according to Skills for Care 2023.
As part of our strategy to maintain, increase and ensure the workforce have appropriate skills to meet local population needs, we remain committed to fully engaging with regional and national campaigns and initiatives. Locally, we will work with the market to provide strategic leadership and support with key challenges such as recruitment and retention to establish a clear market sustainability model, aligned to the external workforce strategy. We are committed to working in partnership with the market, using a co-design approach through a new Provider Reference Group and Provider Forums to develop an external workforce training and development programme. Our Place partners and key stakeholders will contribute to this, to help develop a workforce with the capability to meet future care and support needs. This will address the increasing complexity of need and allow greater choice in local services.
Our commitment extends to our own workforce, across a range of in-house services and social work teams. We will continue to improve our business processes through the introduction of a Quality Assurance Framework and a Workforce Development Strategy, fostering a continuous learning environment and sharing of best practice. This will be with a view of implementing clearly defined career pathways.