Morpth Social Workers to be Relocated

6.02.29pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 10th Jul 2009

Social workers covering Morpeth are to be located with the other much larger teams in the South East of the County, but there will be no change in the level of cover provided in Morpeth. The reasoning behind the decision is that these social workers, who actually spend most of their time working outside of Morpeth, need to be based together with other child care professionals for information sharing, supervision and professional development purposes. This is especially important following the 'Laming Review' concerned with safeguarding issues in Children's Services across the Country. Also, Ofsted have indicated that the arrangement of having just two social workers in an office for high risk work is unacceptable and a closure recommendation for was anticipated after a forthcoming inspection. The accommodation for the two social workers based at Morpeth had also been deemed not 'fit for purpose' which reinforced the decision.