We have recently released an update to the Excel based Social Worker Data Tool (available here). The aim of this tool is to make the information on practising Social Workers employed by local authorities more accessible.

This tool provides time series of the headcount and whole time equivalent (WTE) of social workers from 2012 to 2021. There are interactive in-cell dropdown menus that allow you to filter by the social work subsector so that you can easily toggle between social workers in adult services, children services, offender services and generic provision or view the totals across all four subsectors. Additional you can filter the results by main grade/senior social workers and by full-time/part-time staff too.

To aid benchmarking between local authorities the headcount and WTE figures are also available per 100,000 people within the local authority area. The tool chooses the relevant population for the subsector selected, for example if viewing social workers in children’s services the headcount and WTE are shown per 100,000 people aged 0 to 17 years old. For each year within the time series the tool generates a graph displaying all 32 local authorities ranked in order of the level of provision they have, together with a benchmarking line showing the national average.