Casework Skills Test Question 38 – Prioritising urgent cases within an ageing queue
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Practice focus: Triage, deadlines and transparent workload decisions
Difficulty: Medium
Scenario
Your team has a backlog of twenty older cases. The manager has asked staff to work broadly from the oldest case first. While reviewing the queue, you identify three newer cases marked with evidence of imminent court deadlines or safeguarding concerns. The workload guidance says urgent risk and statutory deadlines take priority, with reasons for any reordering recorded.
Rate the actions
For each action, choose Counterproductive, Ineffective, Fairly Effective or Effective.
Action A
Check the urgency markers against the guidance, move the qualifying cases forward, record the reasons and continue working the remaining queue in age order.
Rate this action:
Counterproductive Ineffective Fairly Effective Effective
Action B
Work only from the oldest case because changing the order would conflict with the manager's instruction.
Rate this action:
Counterproductive Ineffective Fairly Effective Effective
Action C
Move every new case ahead of the backlog because newer cases are more likely to contain urgent information.
Rate this action:
Counterproductive Ineffective Fairly Effective Effective
Action D
Tell the manager about the three cases and wait for a revised allocation before doing any work on them.
Rate this action:
Counterproductive Ineffective Fairly Effective Effective
Click to reveal the answer
| Action | Correct rating |
|---|---|
| Action A | Effective |
| Action B | Counterproductive |
| Action C | Ineffective |
| Action D | Fairly Effective |
Members can unlock the full explanation for all four actions, including how evidence, fairness, confidentiality, customer impact and authority affect each rating.
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