Vacancies for social workers at Buckinghamshire Council have remained empty for years while dozens of staff live outside of the county, including one who is based abroad, it can be revealed.

It comes as councillors from across the political spectrum have warned of the severe recruitment issues facing the local authority and questioned whether ‘remote’ social workers can provide a quality service.

The council currently employs 362 social workers across adult and children’s social care and also has 41 vacancies.

The majority of the unfilled posts have been vacant for more than three months, while a handful have been empty for a year, including some for even two or three years.

The figures, released by the council to the Bucks Free Press under freedom of information laws, also show that at least 116 social workers live outside Buckinghamshire.

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Many of these staff live in neighbouring counties like Berkshire, Greater London, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire.

However, some live in places as far away as Derbyshire, Essex, Kent and the Isle of Wight, as well as one who is based abroad.

The council did not specify the country, but said that one of its social workers was a UK resident undertaking ‘work related activities from outside of the UK within government regulations’.

However, that country could be Cyprus, according to Conservative Bucks councillor Alan Turner, who claimed last month that the council employed a social worker currently living on the eastern Mediterranean island.

Speaking during the health and adult social care select committee, he questioned how well a social worker living 2,000 miles from Buckinghamshire could carry out their duties.

He said: “In once instance I am aware that the client’s social worker lives in Cyprus and I really, really don’t see how that can be a positive for the clients involved.”

The councillor also noted that several of the council’s staff lived in the Midlands and said: “We are all aware that there is a real dearth of social workers. It is very difficult to recruit.”

The revelation that Bucks social workers do not live in the county was also criticised by Cllr Stuart Wilson, who leads the Impact Alliance group of opposition councillors.

“Our most vulnerable adults and children need local, not remote, social workers,” he told the Free Press this week.

The councillor said he had supported the launch of the council’s ‘Social Worker Academy’ a couple of years ago but was ‘surprised to learn that it was being halted’.

He added: “With so many long-term vacancies, one might think the council needs to reconsider this decision.

“We have to protect our most vulnerable as a moral and statutory duty; and we also have to consider our council taxpayers who see more of their taxes going to social care operated by exploitative private care homes and social care employment agencies raising prices way ahead of inflation.”

Social care is one of the main financial pressures on the council’s budget, along with temporary accommodation for homeless people and home to school transport.

In 2024 to 2025, the council’s net budget for adult social care alone is £197 million – nearly 40 per cent of its overall revenue budget.

Cllr Wilson said that the ‘huge pressure’ on social care in Bucks was not only due to increasing demand, but also stemmed from the ‘complete failure’ of national and local government to deal with the issue.

He said: “Adult social care reform has once again been pushed back by successive administrations ducking the big decisions in the absence of new funding.

“Children’s social care is a totally dysfunctional market with price scalping by private care home providers limiting funding for care workers.

“As a nation, we fail to address funding issues, we shut the door on migrant social workers to fill the long-term vacancies, and we fail to provide genuinely affordable key worker housing to enable social workers to live locally.

“How can we possibly agree to let developers build hundreds of flats on a brownfield site in Wycombe without any provision for affordable housing for key workers?”

Angela Macpherson, Buckinghamshire Council’s deputy leader, and cabinet member for health and wellbeing, said remote social workers still saw their clients face to face.

She told the Free Press: “Social work is a complex job which covers a large range of tasks and roles. Roles can vary greatly and not all social work roles require face to face contact with clients – although clearly for many of our social workers, this is a core part of what they do.

“We do employ social workers who fulfil parts of their role remotely; these members of staff, including those listed as not residing in Buckinghamshire, still visit clients in person to conduct face to face assessments and reviews, and carry out other tasks remotely such as write ups and administrative activities.

“Our priority, as ever, is ensuring we have the right roles and the right staff to serve our communities and we are confident that while our vacancy rate remains a challenge, we have the right people in the right roles in our social work teams to support our residents.”