Jan O'Sullivan
Question:408 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Health and Children the level of turnover of social worker staff in each of the health board regions between 1988 and 2002. [7032/03]
Vol. 563 No. 1
408 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Health and Children the level of turnover of social worker staff in each of the health board regions between 1988 and 2002. [7032/03]
Information on the turnover of staff is not collected on a routine basis by my Department. I have asked the chief executive officers of the health boards and the regional chief executive of the Eastern Regional Health Authority to supply the information available to them on the turnover of social work staff in their health board areas over the years in question and I will communicate directly with the Deputy when this information is received.
The Deputy will be aware however that one of the functions of the National Social Work Qualifications Board is to conduct research to inform labour force planning. The board has recently published a report of a survey on social work posts nationally, conducted on 1 September 2001. Turnover rate, the number of employees who left an agency in the year leading up to 1 September as a percentage of employment, was measured in the survey and a turnover rate of 18.1%, 362 staff, is shown. The survey indicated that 176 or nearly half the social workers who left their posts did so to take up another social work post or a secondment to another Irish agency, illustrating the mobility within the profession. Only 6% left to take up a non-social work post.