Respect and protect

This report, produced jointly by LGE, the Local Government Assocation (LGA) and the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), launches the 'Respect, Recruit, Retain' campaign – a drive to recruit and retain children's social workers.


Across the country one in ten social worker posts are unfilled and this figure urgently needs to be reduced so we can protect children effectively.

A great deal has been said and written in recent months about children's social work, by no means all of it supported by evidence. This report, which focuses on children's social workers employed by local authorities, draws together the key facts and so aims to create a simple and straightforward evidence base for the discussions to come, following first the publication of Lord Laming's review of child protection and, later on, the outcomes of the Social Work Taskforce.

Over the coming months the LGA will be taking this campaign directly to Government and Opposition parties to build a cross-party consensus and to ensure that children are better protected, lives are not lost when this could have been prevented, and children's social workers are given what they need to get the job done.