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Short Reviews of Social Work Services in Scottish Local Authorities

Appendix 2 Statistical Information

FINANCE

Table 1 below provides details of the actual and planned expenditure across local authorities for the past five years. The Scottish Executive, in partnership with local government, is now introducing a 3 year settlement from 2001-2002, in place of the previous annual cycle for local government finance.

Table 1 Social Work Net Revenue Expenditure (000s)1,2,3

1 Total net expenditure is the amount to be met from Council Tax, Non-domestic rates and Revenue Support Grant.
2 Loan Charges have been excluded.
3 Support Services costs and Revenue Contributions to Capital are supported nationally, pro-rata to expenditure on operating costs.

Specific Grant Expenditure

Each year, in addition to the funds allocated to the general provision of social work services, the government makes specific grants to local authorities for expenditure on areas of priority need. The table below show the expenditure on these grants for the year 1999-2000 and the specific grants which will be available to the local authorities until 2003.

Table 2 Specific grant to local authorities

CHILDREN'S SERVICES

• Just under 7,200 children were referred to local authorities for child protection inquiries in 2001-2002: 40% of those were the subject of an inter-agency case conference.
• In 84% of instances where children were subject to a case conference, the children in question were living at home prior to being referred.
• In over three quarters of all case conferences, the primary source of abuse/risk to the child was known or suspected to be the child's birth parent(s).
• 70% of case conferences occurring as a result of children referred in the year ending 31 March 2002 resulted in the child being placed on the local child protection register.
• Almost three quarters of children placed on the child protection register during the year were identified as being at risk of physical injury or physical neglect.
• 70% of children removed from child protection registers during the year had been on the register for less than a year, with 7% having spent at least 2 years on the register.
• As at 31 March 2002, 2,018 children were on local child protection registers, an increase of just over 18 on the number one year previously.
• At 31 March 2002, just over 11,200 children were 'looked after' by the local authorities. This represents 1% of all children under 18.
• Information on educational attainment of looked after children leaving care was collected for the first time. Not all councils were able to provide figures, however headline figures about Scotland should give a broad picture. Of 16 and 17 year old care leavers, six out of ten did not achieve any qualifications, and 27% got both English and Maths at standard grade.
• Less than one in seven looked after children lived in residential accommodation.

Figure 1

Children referred for child protection inquiries in Scotland in the year ending 31 March 2002 who were subject to a case conference and were subsequently registered.

COMMUNITY CARE SERVICES

Table 3 below outlines the number of people receiving different types of community care services in the year to 31 March 2002.

Source: SEHD, Social Work Statistics Division
Note:
In 1998 a new methodology was introduced for dealing with non-response for the home care, day care and residential care data collections. Therefore, care must be taken when comparing data over time if the time period covers data before and after 1998.
Specific Notes:
(1) Other client groups include people with drug and alcohol problems, HIV and AIDS, ex-offenders, homeless people and other vulnerable groups.
(2) Client groups, other than older people, may include people aged 65 and over; therefore there may be some overlap and the total clients figure will not necessarily equal the sum of the client groups.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE SERVICES

Table 4 below sets out the numbers of offenders on whom social enquiry reports were prepared or who were supervised by social work services in 2001-2002.

Table 4 Number of Social Enquiry Reports, Probation Orders and Community Service Orders

Source: SEHD, Social Work Statistics Division

SOCIAL WORK SERVICES STAFFING

As at October 2002, the total number of staff working in local authority social work services was 47,446 and employed in the services outlined in Figure 2, below.

Figure 2

The majority (85%) of all staff in 2002 were female. This proportion was highest for staff providing services for adults, where 90% were female, and the lowest for staff providing services for offenders (59%).

There were 36,415 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) staff employed by Scottish Local Authority Social Work Services in October 2002. This represented an increase of 5% from the 2001 total.

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