Twelve extra social workers have been employed in Warwickshire to deal with the extra demand brought on by lockdown

Twelve extra social workers have been employed by Warwickshire County Council to deal with the extra demand brought on by lockdown.

Cllr Jeff Morgan (Con, Bulkington and Whitestone), the council’s portfolio holder for children's services, explained that problems with getting court cases heard was also adding to the problem.

He told Tuesday's meeting of the children and young people overview and scrutiny committee: “Since September there has been a significant increase in demand and another increase since the second lockdown started. Referrals to the MASH [multi-agency safeguarding hub] are up 30 per cent week on week and the number of referrals leading to assessments was up as well.

“I think a lot of it is down to Covid and restrictions on movement on young people getting out and about. If you have a difficult situation in a family then things are tough anyway and along come these restrictions coupled with people unfortunately losing their jobs then the temperature is going to rise.

“Sadly I’m not surprised - what we are seeing are some of the insidious effects of lockdown.

“As a result of this increase in demand we have employed 12 additional social workers.

“One of the problems we are having is with the courts because of Covid. There is a blockage. There hasn’t really been an increase in the number of children coming into care, it’s just that the exit has been blocked. The number in care has gone up by 12 per cent since last year. It is difficult but we are managing it.”

Councillors were told that while such blockages were happening up and down the country, the problem locally pre-dated Covid.

John Coleman, the county council’s assistant direction for children and families explained: “We raised this, even before Covid, with the president of the family court. It is recognised as a national issue and is something that the Department of Education is looking at with the Ministry of Justice.

“There is a national recovery plan but our view is that there should be a local recovery plan because one of the things that we are particularly experiencing is that timescales in courts in Coventry and Warwickshire was a concern pre-Covid and Covid has made that situation worse.

“The onus on us as a local authority is to do everything we can to help the court prioritise and that’s what we are doing.”