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Supporting social workers with administration tasks

Consider the best practice of various local authorities to provide efficient administration support to social workers.

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‘Hub and spoke’ business support model: Essex

This model brings administration tasks together (hub) and sets up support teams (spokes) that work directly with social workers to give them quick, flexible help through:

  • business centres that handle meeting support, agency checks, referrals, and administration triggered by automated systems
  • integrated support teams that work alongside social workers, providing tailored on-demand support

Why this model works

Social care staff have helped shape this approach over the past 10 years. It fixes common problems in areas such as:

  • staff duplicating tasks in inconsistent ways
  • lack of cover when staff are off work
  • delays in administration tasks, such as taking meeting minutes
  • administration staff working alone without support from colleagues
  • limited career progression for administration staff
  • social care managers having to recruit administration staff, which adds to their workload
  • managing administration staff

The benefits of this model

The model makes support in social care work better by:

  • keeping important tasks in one place, making them more accurate and efficient
  • helping social workers get the support they need by using specialist administration teams
  • increasing flexibility through adaptation to demand (For example, bringing in 20 extra staff for the Homes for Ukraine initiative)
  • helping administration staff develop skills and move into business support or social care roles
  • improving efficiency to reduce workloads and support social workers as and when they need it

What we can learn from the challenges

Some managers find it hard to give up direct control of administration tasks. They worry the support will not meet their team’s needs or respond quickly enough. Regular communication with senior leaders is important and helps to:

  • build trust
  • share performance data
  • show the benefits of collaborative working

It’s important to set clear boundaries between administration tasks and those that need qualified social workers. For example, administration staff can type up chronologies but should not create them from scratch, as this requires professional judgement. Training and clear guidance help staff understand their roles and avoid confusion.

Building strong working relationships

Social care needs change over time, so the model must stay flexible. Regular feedback and open communication help build strong relationships between administration and social care teams. You can build strong working relationships by:

  • providing ongoing training for administration staff
  • training on new systems, especially in a large, complex organisation
  • encouraging teamwork, and promoting a culture of learning and improvement
  • offering career progression to administration staff while considering it may result in higher staff turnover
  • quick and effective onboarding to help new staff get up to speed and keep the service running smoothly

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation to ease workloads: Cornwall

Cornwall has faced big budget cuts, leading to a decrease in business support staff; some teams have lost more than 30%. As a result, more administration tasks have fallen to social workers, such as managing paperwork. This causes delays and makes it harder for them to focus on children and families.

Explore how AI and automation can help

Cornwall is piloting AI tools like Copilot to cut down on duplicate work in recording systems and assessments. Automating tasks aims to free up social workers’ time and reduce their administration load. Business support teams have built templates and automated systems within the Mosaic case management system to help social workers work more efficiently.

Principal social workers (PSWs) work alongside team managers. Each team has a PSW who:

  • supports the team manager and helps supervise the team
  • oversees the quality of social work practice and supports development
  • helps train all social workers
  • keeps a small caseload to stay in touch with frontline work and support complex cases
  • shares cases when workloads are high to prevent anyone from being overwhelmed

Specialised teams

Cornwall also runs specialist teams, like the Functional Family Therapy team and the multi-agency rapid response service. These provide targeted early support and prevent family breakdowns.

They carry out continuous triage and regular reviews of children and families to decide whether to close cases, reduce the level of contact, or refer them to other services.

This approach combines technology, targeted support, and strong leadership to make social workers’ jobs more manageable and keep the focus on children and families.

Collaborating to change administration support for social workers

Another local authority in England reported that their current administration support structure aims to be efficient while keeping close links between administration staff and social workers. This setup helps administration staff understand team needs and build strong working relationships.

Each team includes Level 1 and Level 2 business support staff, led by a senior business support officer, all reporting to a business manager.

Social workers are supported by:

  • safeguarding administration teams in local areas who handle daily administration like typing minutes, booking transport and rooms, and managing documents
  • practice consultants who offer mentoring and expert advice to support teams with specialist needs

Temporary social work assistants stepped in after family support workers (FSW) were moved to other services like early help and family support. They now work on complex cases and help with tasks like family time.

Good communication and strong relationships help administration tasks run smoothly. Business support staff and social work managers work closely, but these relationships need constant attention and effort.

What’s changing

The authority is looking at new ways to help reduce pressure on social workers. This includes a focus on direct work with families and ways for social workers and administration staff to work more closely together by:

  • bringing back FSW roles to help with tasks like organising family time, applying for birth certificates, and transporting children
  • creating a central administration team to manage tasks like transport and room bookings
  • piloting AI tools like Copilot to help with tasks such as writing meeting minutes, to save time and improve quality

Current challenges

The service still faces issues, such as:

  • administration staff lacking capacity to take on more work, pushing extra tasks onto social workers
  • adopting new technology bringing training and adaptation challenges and slowing down services

By improving administration support, using digital tools, and reviewing staffing structures, the authority aims to ease pressure on social workers and improve services for children and families.

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These resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 24 September 2025
Last updated: 24 September 2025