Employers in England have been issued with guidance on implementing recently introduced rules to reduce use of agency staff as well as longstanding standards on how they support their social workers.
The Department for Education-commissioned resources, produced by Research in Practice, Essex County Council and King’s College London, are designed to improve support for, and the stability, of the workforce to aid the DfE’s children’s social care reforms.
While initiated by the Conservatives last year, these reforms are largely being continued by the Labour government.
What are the agency social work rules?
- Councils should work within regions to agree and implement maximum hourly pay rates for agency practitioners (including employers’ national insurance contributions and holiday pay) in each of the following roles: social worker, senior social worker, advanced practitioner, team manager and independent reviewing officer/conference chair.
- In all contractual arrangements to supply social workers through project teams or packaged arrangements, all workers are identified and approved by the local authority in advance, costs are disaggregated for each worker and any other service and councils maintain complete control of practice.
- Notice periods for agency social workers should be four weeks or in line with that for permanent social workers in the same or equivalent roles where the latter is shorter.
- Councils should not engage social workers as locums within three months of them leaving a permanent post in the same region.
- Councils should only use agency social workers with a minimum of three years’ post-qualifying experience in direct employment of an English local authority in children’s services. P
- Councils should provide a detailed practice-based reference, using a standard national template, for all agency social workers they engage and require at least two such references the same before taking on a locum.
- Councils must (by law) supply the DfE with quarterly data on each agency social work assignment and on their use of locums generally.
The agency rules, which apply only to council children’s services, were introduced at the end of October 2024, though they will not come fully into force until 1 October 2025.
They are set out in statutory guidance, meaning councils must comply with them other than in exceptional circumstances, while one of the rules – supplying the DfE with quarterly data on agency use – is a legal requirement.
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Resources to support agency rules’ implementation
The agency workforce resources include:
- A self-assessment tool to help councils determine their readiness to implement the rules, covering issues such as how they work with agencies and the effectiveness of memoranda of understanding (MoU) – regional agreements governing the use of locums.
- An action plan template setting out what is required of councils under each rule and enabling councils to track progress on fulfilling these requirements.
- A checklist for councils on meeting the DfE’s data collection requirements.
- An induction checklist for each agency social work assignment, to ensure compliance with the rules.
- An audit tool to assess how far MoU and contracts with agencies and managed service providers (MSPs) – third-party organisations that manages agency recruitment on councils’ behalf – comply with the rules.
- Guidance on the governance and oversight of the rules by regional improvement and innovation alliances (RIIAs) – groupings of councils responsible for children’s services performance in each region.
Breaching agency pay caps
The statutory guidance on the agency rules allows councils to exceed regional price caps, setting out maximum hourly rates for locums, so long as these are signed off by the council’s director of children’s services and chief executive and the authority reports the breach to the DfE.
It also says that councils should “work within their region to agree any additional, region-wide governance processes” to govern price cap breaches.
The agency social work resources say this may include RIIAs agreeing that councils ask permission to breach the caps or any other aspect of regional agreements on the implementation of the rules.
RIIAs may also consider setting out sanctions for breaching agreements to act as a deterrent. It cited one region where authorities are fined a small amount of money for breaching the MOU without permission, with the collected funds invested in regional training.
Supporting the employer standards
Alongside the agency workforce resources, the DfE has published guidance – applicable to employers in all sectors in England – on implementing the employer standards for social workers.
The standards, which are overseen by the Local Government Association (LGA), set voluntary expectations of how organisations support practitioners to work safely and effectively across eight areas: having a strong and clear social work framework; effective workforce planning systems; safe workloads and case allocation; wellbeing; supervision; continuing professional development; professional registration, and strategic partnership.
The guidance includes advice for employers on improving performance against each standard and on managing common challenges.
Declining social worker satisfaction
The LGA conducts an annual survey of social workers – the health check – to gauge employers’ performance against the standards. The latest of these, carried out this year, found declining satisfaction among social workers in relation to seven of the eight standards, compared with the previous health check.
The steepest decline was in relation to the standard on effective workforce planning systems, in relation to which social workers raised particular concerns about employers not consulting them about workplace changes or understanding and addressing barriers to good practice.
The standards that has consistently had the lowest level of satisfaction is CPD, with practitioners’ biggest concern being having a lack of time, resources, opportunities and support for learning, an issue also highlighted by practitioners in response to a survey this year by Community Care Inform.
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Support from Local Authorities and managers for Social Workers to work their contracted weekly hours (37 hours) instead of promoting an environmental culture where excessive hours are expected without additional pay and without any prospect of taking time in lieu. Over the years research has consistently highlighted that Social Workers are working 50+ hours per week. This needs to be addressed to effectively support front-line staff.
Yes but it is swept under the carpet and social workers do not fight back we have a union basw but non striking nurses doctors have great protection we do not strike or working to rule is the only way they listen the exploitation of social workers is great but it is excepted both by the social worker department of education local authorities we moan we leave comments basw do lots of research on the state if social work community care print but it is silent and nobody cares least of all the department agency social workers are an easy scapegoat
It’s nice to see that the rules, including pay caps don’t apply to senior managers. Funny that
I would rather quit completely than work for less than am worth. I am already giving more than 50 hours a week to meet deadlines for endless reports and managing a high caseload with an unrealistic expectation to still work 37 hours when is 50 to 60 hours. They should wait for the massive exodus of Social Workers
Social workers are overworked and underpaid no amount of money can equate to their contribution
The expectation is quite unrealistic