Ms Catherine Bond:

The black spots we mentioned had a full complement of social workers and it then reduced back again. The anecdotal evidence from foster carers is that in one particular area they did not have any social workers for a while, then they got a great and wonderful team and things were going really well and everyone was delighted. Then those social workers left again very quickly. Maybe it goes back to getting under the rationale of why people are leaving. This is why exit interviews are very important. If possible, they could be done anonymously on a portal or online. We need to know why people are taking up jobs and then leaving the jobs. Until we have that data we will not really know how we can assist in retaining social workers.