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Social workers’ caseloads do not align with the average calculated by the Department for Education, a Community Care poll has found.

Based on submissions from councils, the DfE calculated that, in September 2024, the average caseload for children’s social workers in England was 15.4. 

This was down from 16.0 twelve months earlier and 16.6 in 2022.

Social workers’ caseloads ‘well above’ DfE calculations

However, social workers have rejected the DfE’s calculations.

A Community Care poll with almost 600 votes found that the department’s average was “well below” 78% of respondents’ caseloads.

Only 15% said it was in line with their experience. 

‘I have never had a caseload as low as 15’

Social workers commenting on the related article also dismissed the figure, deeming it “misleading”.

“Numbers of children allocated to social workers is very misleading,” said Stella Potente. “How many families? What is the intensity of the work? How many of the families are in court proceedings? How many require parenting assessments?” 

Many admitted they never had a caseload of 15 cases, with Linsey Parker calling the number “a pipe dream”.

“If you double it, and add the extra hours outside working hours, it would be more realistic. Social workers just keep calm and carry on until they mentally can’t,” she said.

Jemma added: “I have never had a caseload as low as 15, and still don’t. I am also confused as to why the focus is on the number of cases and does not factor in the complexity. Social work should not be based on numbers and figures.”

Another practitioner, Roisin, who qualified in 2017, said she had been allocated 20 cases in her assessed and supported year in employment – a number that has not decreased since.

“[I have had] between 20-25 looked-after children cases. It’s not easy maintaining complex cases and families on a long-term basis with those numbers.”

‘Figure includes non-case-holding practitioners’

One social worker, Kelly, noted that the figure failed to be “a true reflection” of the reality because they included cases held by managers, who would generally be responsible for far fewer children than frontline practitioners, depressing the average.

Similarly, Guli said the DfE’s average was “artificially low” because social workers were, in practice, supporting unallocated siblings of children on their caseloads.

“The ultimate responsibility for safeguarding all these unallocated children falls on your unpaid and unrecognised overtime,” they added.

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

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Do you have a colleague, mentor or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

The number of children on protection plans for child sexual abuse in England has hit a 30-year low, experts have warned.

An “alarming decrease” in the identification of CSA by safeguarding practitioners has left no or very few children on child protection plans in the majority of areas, said the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre).

The findings came in a CSA Centre analysis of data on child sexual abuse for 2023-24, which also flagged up a fall in the number of cases in which sexual abuse or exploitation was identified following a child in need assessment.

The analysis was based on the DfE’s 2023-24 children in need census, which identified year-on-year decreases in the numbers of assessments of children, children in need and children on child protection plans.

Declining number of CSA cases

However, the centre said that the number of cases involving CSA had fallen more steeply than average.

While the total number of child in need assessments recording any concerns fell by 0.4% from 2022-23 to 2023-24, the number identifying CSA fell by 8%, from 33,760 to 30,970, the lowest level since the pandemic year of 2020-21.

There was also an 8% year-on-year drop in the number of assessments that recorded child sexual exploitation (CSE) as a concern, with the 13,860 recorded being the lowest number since 2014-15.

Lowest number of plans for sexual abuse in 30 years

Just 2,160 children were placed on child protection plans for sexual abuse in 2023-24, the lowest number during the 30 years in which this data has been published. The 5.8% fall in the number of such plans from 2022-23 to 2023-24.= compares with a 2.8% drop in the overall number of child protection plans.

The centre also found that seven councils placed no children on plans under the primary category of sexual abuse, while 42 placed a “very low” proportion” on such plans (less than 0.2 per 1,000 children in the area).

In a further 54 councils, the data was suppressed because they had between one and five children placed on a plan for sexual abuse in their area during the year. As a result, 103 councils – two-thirds of the total – had no or very few children placed on child protection plans for CSA, said the centre.

The number of children placed on plans for sexual abuse was equivalent to just 7% of the children whose initial assessments recorded CSA or CSE as concerns in 2023-24. This was similar to the equivalent proportion for physical abuse (6%) but much lower than those of emotional abuse (24%) or neglect (37%).

The number of cases falls far short of the CSA Centre’s estimate – based on a prevalence study published in 2011 – that 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused each year.

Lack of practitioner skill, knowledge and confidence

The findings follow the CSA Centre’s study of intrafamilial CSA for the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, published last year, which found practitioners were frequently not identifying abuse due to a lack of skills, knowledge and confidence.

A consistent theme from cases analysed and discussions with practitioners was an over-reliance on children verbally reporting abuse.

Practitioners reported being told in training that they needed to wait for children to approach them to disclose abuse, rather than proactively talking to them when they had concerns. They were also deterred from speaking to children by an “overriding fear of interfering with any possible future criminal investigation”.

This approach ran contrary to research indicating the multiple barriers children faced in disclosing CSA. Some children in the reviews reported waiting for someone to ask them in order to be able to disclose.

Ministers due to response to CSA inquiry

The CSA Centre’s latest report comes with the government due to publish its plan for implementing the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which reported in 2022.

Ministers have already agreed to implement the inquiry’s headline recommendation – requiring those in positions of trust with children to report cases of CSA that are disclosed to them, or that they witness, or face criminal sanctions.

CSA director Ian Dean said its latest report, and those preceding it, “[underlined] the need for system-wide change in how sexually abused children are identified, responded to and protected by all statutory safeguarding agencies”.

“We need to build a system where professionals have strong leadership, clear guidance, and proper support to identify abuse early and prevent further harm,” he added.

The number of people starting social work apprenticeship courses in England is continuing to grow, show government figures.

In 2023-24, 1,390 people started apprenticeship courses, up 31% on the 1,060 who did so in 2022-23 and almost double the 740 who started courses in 2021-22, according to the Department for Education data.

At the same time, the number of apprentices achieving their qualification trebled, from 200 in 2021-22 to 650 in 2023-24; 570 apprentices qualified in 2022-23.

Overall, 5,580 people started social work courses in England – through the diverse range of routes – in 2021-22, with 3,860 successfully qualifying in the same year, according to Skills for Care. Figures are not available for subsequent years.

Record numbers of children’s social workers are in post in England but there has been a fall in the number holding cases, Department for Education (DfE) figures have revealed.

There was an increase of about 1,200 full-time equivalent (FTE) social workers employed in council children’s services in the year to September 2024, with numbers rising by 3.7% to 34,328.2, the highest figure in a data series that started in 2017.

However, the data, which covers registered social workers apart from the director of children’s services, revealed that there had been a fall in the number of practitioners holding cases in 2023-24, with four in ten now not being case holders.

At the same time, the FTE vacancy rate – which hit a high of September 20% in 2022 – fell from 18.9% to 17.3%, with the number of full-time equivalent vacancies dropping by just over 500 (6.9%), to 7,188.6.

The proportion of FTE agency social workers in the workforce also fell, from 17.9% to 16.2%, with their number dropping by over 650 (9.2%), to 6,520.7, a trend attributed in part to authorities preparing for the introduction of rules restricting their use in local authority children’s services.

Improvement in retention

Fewer FTE social workers left their posts in the year to September 2024 (5,254.6) than over the previous 12 months (4,728.7), bringing the turnover rate down from 15.9% to 13.8%, the lowest proportion since 2019-20.

Provisional DfE data suggests that 61% of these leavers – about 2,868.1 FTE staff or 8.4% of the workforce – left local authority children’s social work altogether in 2023-24. In 2022-23, 3,028.3 staff (9.1% of the then workforce) left the sector.

Of other leavers in 2023-24, 27% (1,275.1 FTE staff) moved between children’s services authorities and 12% (585.5) took up an agency post in the sector.

As in previous years, staff with less than two years’ service in their current local authority made up the largest group by time spent with their employer, with their percentage increasing from 30.9% to 31.4% (10,786.7).

The proportion of those with between two and five years’ service fell, from 26.8% to 25%.

Recruitment levels

The number of new starters dropped by just over 400 FTE staff from 2022-23 to 2023-24, reflecting the fact that no one graduated from the biennial Step Up to Social Work programme during the latter period.

However, at 5,613.4 FTE posts, the number of starters was higher than in any previous non-Step Up year, which the DfE suggested reflected the fact that record numbers of people (650) qualified through social work apprenticeships in 2023-24.

The figures also revealed that the average FTE children’s social worker was off sick for 3.4% of their working time in 2023-24, up from 3.2% in 2022-23.

Workforce demographics 

The number of FTE social workers grew in every age group, with the largest increase (of about 550 staff) being in the 40-49 segment. Staff aged 30-39 continued to be the largest group, accounting for 30.1% of the workforce, followed by the 40-49 group, which constituted 26.3% of the total.

The proportion of female staff was similar to that in 2023 (87.5%, compared with 87.4%), while the percentage of FTE social workers from ethnic minority groups (excluding white minorities) grew from 25.3% to 26.9%.

This was driven, chiefly, by the growth in the proportion of black staff, from 14.7% to 15.7%, between 2023 and 2024.

Caseload average hits record low 

According to the DfE’s measure of average caseloads, these hit a record low of 15.4 in September 2024, down from 16.0 a year earlier.

The rate is calculated by dividing the number of children or young people allocated to FTE children’s social workers by the number of FTE practitioners.

In previous years, the caseload rate has fallen due to an increase in the number of FTE children’s social workers holding cases, amid a relatively stable number of cases. However, in 2023-24, the key factor was a drop in the number of cases held by social workers.

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Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

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Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

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Fall in number of case-holding practitioners

From September 2023 to September 2024, the number of case-holding social workers fell by 1.5%, from about 21,111.4 to 20,803.5 FTE staff.

This means the proportion of case holders in the workforce (60.6%) is at its lowest level since records began in 2017.

The data showed small increases in the number of social work-registered senior managers and middle managers, who accounted for 2.1% and 5% of the workforce, respectively, in September 2024.

The number of first-line managers grew by just over 400 FTE staff, to 5,449.7, 15.9% of the workforce, up from 15.2% a year earlier.

Growing number of qualified staff not holding cases

The group that saw the biggest rise was qualified practitioners who were not holding cases, whose number increased by 1,700, to 6,373.1 – 18.6% of the workforce, up from 14.1% in 2023.

The DfE said this was caused in part by a new rule, under which practitioners previously categorised as case holders were reclassified as non-case holders if they did not hold any cases at the time of the data collection.

Social workers who do not hold cases, and are also not managers, include practice development, workforce development and quality assurance staff. Given that the DfE data is taken on 30 September each year, it may also include staff just starting their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) programme who have not yet been allocated a caseload.

Social workers ‘have faced impossible workloads for too long’

Janet Daby (credit: Richard Townsend Photography)

In response to the figures, children and families minister Janet Daby – herself a former social worker – said that practitioners had struggled for “too long” with “impossible workloads and an over-reliance on agency staff”.

Consequently, she said it was “encouraging” to see “average caseloads reducing, fewer agency workers and fewer people leaving the profession”.

However, she added: “I know that social workers still face significant challenges, which is why I’m determined to see this trend continue.”

She said that the profession was “at the heart” of the government’s plans to reform children’s social care.

‘Progress and ongoing challenges’ for workforce – ADCS

Echoing some of Daby’s message, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services said that the workforce data highlighted “both progress and ongoing challenges”.

Nicola Curley, chair of the ADCS’s workforce policy committee, said it was “encouraging” to see growth in the number of social workers and reduction in the use of agency staff.

However, she added: “Despite these positive trends, the high vacancy rate in some areas continues to be a concern.  Many local areas are facing their own pressures, and we need to ensure that national statistics don’t mask this.

“ADCS will continue to work with the Department for Education and others on implementing reforms to ensure they impact positively on children and families and result in the sustainable workforce they both need and deserve.”

The number of agency children’s social workers in English local authorities has fallen for the first time in seven years, official figures show.

As of 30 September 2024, councils were engaging 6,521 full-time equivalent (FTE) agency practitioners, down by 658 (9.2%) on the year before, according to the Department for Education’s (DfE) annual statistics on the children’s services workforce.

This is the first such fall since the DfE started collecting data on locum numbers in 2017.

The proportion of the workforce FTE made up by agency workers fell sharply, from 17.9% in 2023 – the highest rate yet recorded – to 16.2% in 2024.

Agency social work rules’ impact

The data bears out comments made in July 2024 by Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Andy Smith, who said that use of agency workers was declining due to the impending introduction of rules restricting their use.

The DfE rules, which started to be implemented at the end of October 2024 – a month after the workforce figures were collected – are designed to reduce council spending on agency workers and improve continuity of practitioner support for children and families.

Under the policy, authorities are expected to agree regional pay caps on locums’ hourly rates, refrain from hiring early career practitioners – or staff who have recently left permanent roles in the same region – as agency workers and ensure they directly manage all staff hired through so-called project teams.

The rules are being brought into force gradually, with final implementation due by 1 October 2025.

Fall in agency social worker numbers ‘a positive step’

In commentary on the workforce figures, the DfE suggested councils’ preparation for the rules’ introduction had played a part in the reduction in the use of agency social workers.

“The department’s engagement with local authorities earlier in the year around the issuing of this new guidance may have contributed, at least in part, to the fall in agency social workers in 2024,” it said.

This was endorsed by ADCS workforce policy committee chair Nicola Curley, who said: “It is a positive development that the number of agency children’s social workers has fallen for the first time in seven years.

“While new agency rules only took effect in October, the lead in time and clear messaging from government doubtlessly contributed to this picture, further reducing the sector’s reliance on agency workers, enabling us to provide more consistent support to the children and families we work with.”

Regional variations 

The number of agency workers – and their proportion of the workforce – fell in every region apart from the North East, though it retained its place as the area with the lowest locum rate, at 10.4%.

The sharpest fall in the agency rate came in Yorkshire and the Humber, where it dropped from 15.8% to 11.6%, followed by the West Midlands, where it fell from 16.6% to 13.9%.

London continued to have the highest agency staff rate, but this fell from 23.2% to 21.9% from 2023-24.

As in previous years, most agency social workers, nationally, were covering vacancies in children’s services, with the proportion doing so – 81.3% – reaching the highest level recorded.

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

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Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

Average social worker caseloads have fallen to their lowest recorded level in local authority children’s services in England, according to Department for Education (DfE) figures.

Based on submissions from councils, the DfE found that 15.4 cases were held per full-time equivalent (FTE) practitioner in September 2023, down from 16.0 12 months earlier and 16.6 in 2022. The department started recording average caseloads in 2017, when the figure stood at 17.7.

The rate is calculated by dividing the number of children or young people allocated to FTE children’s social workers by the number of FTE practitioners.

The average fell in every region, in 2023-24, bar one, the North West, where it rose slightly, from 16.5 to 16.6. The sharpest fall was in the East Midlands (from 16.2 to 15.0), with London continuing to have the lowest overall average caseload (13.8, down from 14.4).

Falling number of case-holding social workers

In previous years, the caseload rate has fallen due to an increase in the number of FTE children’s social workers holding cases, amid a relatively stable number of cases.

However, from September 2023 to September 2024, their number fell by 1.5%, from about 21,111.4 to 20,803.5, with the drop in the rate driven instead by a 4.9% fall in the number of cases held by practitioners, from 337,055 to 320,461.

This is the lowest number of cases held by FTE children’s social workers since 2017, when the figure stood at 316,647.

Also, the fall over the 12 months to September 2024 was far steeper than the drop in the number of children in need recorded by councils in the year to March 2024. This fell from 403,090 to 399,460, a drop of 0.9%.

Opening up of child in need assessments beyond social workers

One possible explanation for the discrepancy is a change to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance in 2023 that permitted councils to allocate child in need assessments to non-social work qualified staff, such as early help or family support staff or social work apprentices.

Previously, the guidance, which councils must follow other than in exceptional circumstances, had stipulated that such assessments should be carried out by social workers. Cases must be overseen by a social work-qualified manager or practice supervisor, under the 2023 version of the guidance.

The amendment to Working Together was designed to enable the creation of multidisciplinary family help teams, which would be responsible for both targeted early help and child in need cases.

Part of wider reforms to children’s social care, these are designed to prevent families from having to change practitioner when they move between early help and statutory children’s social care, while also providing them with earlier and more supportive assistance to resolve challenges in their lives.

Family help is currently being tested in the 10 families first for children pathfinders, before a planned national rollout in 2025-26, funded by a £270m DfE grant.

Risk concerns where social workers are not case-holders 

The changes to Working Together were welcomed by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services for enabling councils to deploy their practitioner resource flexibly and focus their social workers on more complex cases.

However, both Ofsted and the British Association of Social Workers raised concerns about a potential increase in risks to children from non-social work qualified staff carrying out child in need assessments.

These concerns were echoed by respondents to a recent Community Care poll, 46% of whom said that having non-social work qualified staff carry out child in need assessments “would carry too much risk for children”. A further 43% were supportive in principle, but said alternatively qualified practitioners would need appropriate training and supervision to carry out the task.

Celebrate those who’ve inspired you

Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock

Do you have a colleague, mentor, or social work figure you can’t help but gush about?

Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate anyone within social work who has inspired you – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.

Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling in our nominations form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.

*Please note that, despite the need to provide your name and role, you or the nominee can be anonymous in the published entry*

If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

The number of mainstream foster care households in England has fallen by 10% over the past three years, despite a rising care population, official figures have shown.

As of 31 March 2024, there were 33,745 approved non-kinship foster households, down by 1,260 (3.6%) on the year before and by 3,580 (9.6%) since 2021, revealed the Ofsted data.

Though the number of family and friends carer households grew for a second consecutive year in 2023-24, from 8,400 to 8,865, they are approved to care for specific children only.

Also, the growth in their number has been far exceeded by the decline in the number of mainstream households, meaning total fostering capacity has fallen from 45,370 to 42,615 from 2021-24, a drop of 6.1% (2,755).

Falling numbers of fostering places

The fall in the number of mainstream fostering households translated into a drop in the number of approved fostering places in 2023-24, from 72,770 to 70,465. This figure has fallen year on year since 2020, when it stood at 78,830.

Meanwhile, the number of filled approved mainstream places, which was stable from 2021-23, fell in 2023-24, from 44,580 to 42,870.

This is despite the number of children in care in England having grown by 3,070, to 83,840, from 2021-23, a period during which the children’s home sector has grown significantly.

Sector charity the Fostering Network said the declining number of carers was the result of a lack of remuneration, inadequate support from their council or fostering agency and insufficient respect for their role.

In response, the Department for Education (DfE) pointed to increased investment since 2023 in foster care recruitment through the rollout of regional hubs to support applicants through the process, which will be extended to the whole country in 2025-26.

Councils disproportionately hit by fall in carer numbers

As in 2022-23, the fall in the number of mainstream fostering households in 2023-24 was driven by reductions in the numbers approved by local authorities, which fell by 975 (4.9%), from 19,835 to 18,860.

There was a smaller fall in the number approved by independent fostering agencies (IFAs), which dropped by 280 (1.8%), to 14,890. IFAs now account for 44% of mainstream fostering households – up from 41% in 2020 – and 48% of filled mainstream places, up from 43% in 2020.

However, while the number of IFA-approved households grew in 2019-20 and 2020-21, this figure has reduced in each of the last three years.

Recruitment and retention

There was a slight increase in the number of applications to foster in 2023-24, with 8,485 households doing so, up from 8,010 the previous year.

However, the number of newly approved mainstream households was flat year on year (4,055, compared with 4,080 in 2022-23) and below annual levels seen between 2019-20 and 2021-22.

The number of deregistrations was 4,820 in 2023-24, with 4,280 households leaving fostering altogether during the year, down from 4,570 in 2022-23.

Policy response to foster care shortages

Under its Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy, the previous Conservative government took action to bolster foster care recruitment and retention, including by:

• Increasing national minimum fostering allowances by 12.43% in 2023 and 6.88% in 2024.
• Investing £36m, from 2023-25, in 10 regional fostering recruitment hubs, covering 64% of local authorities. These are designed to provide a single point of contact for people interested in fostering and support them through the process from initial enquiry to application.

The majority of hubs were launched in summer 2024, after the timeframe of Ofsted’s figures, meaning their impact is yet to be seen in the data. Labour has continued with the regional hubs policy, allocating £15m in 2025-26 to roll them out to the rest of the country.

Recruitment hubs ‘will generate hundreds of new placements’

A Department for Education spokesperson said this would “generate hundreds of new foster placements and offer children a stable environment to grow up in”.

“Foster carers play a hugely important role in the wider children’s social care system and will be at the heart of our thinking as we re-focus the system to provide earlier support and greater stability for children,” the spokesperson added.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) said it welcomed the extra investment but stressed that it was “imperative that local and central government continue to work together to ensure we have enough foster carers and that they have the resources, training, and support needed to thrive in their roles”.

Leaving IFAs out of recruitment hubs ‘a strategic error’

The Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers, which represents IFAs, meanwhile, raised concerns about the exclusion of agencies from recruitment hubs.

“Government has decided to roll out the recruitment and retention hubs across England,” said NAFP chief executive Harvey Gallagher.

“This is premature, given the short time most have been operational. But, in the light of falling fostering capacity, it’s understandable that government hope these hubs will provide a possible solution.

“The hubs have excluded IFAs – this is a strategic error. Local authorities and IFAs are two parts of the same system, as this dataset demonstrates. Government policy should reflect this.

“We need to rid ourselves of historical divides and pull together to provide the high quality integrated fostering provision which our children and young people deserve.”

Lack of remuneration and support causing carers to quit – charity

The Fostering Network said carers were leaving for three main reasons – inadequate remuneration, lack of support from their fostering service and insufficient respect for their role – and warned that “annual losses will continue unless urgent action on a much greater scale is taken”.

“Action needs to be taken to make fostering more sustainable – we urgently need a UK-wide fostering strategy that addresses the retention of foster carers as much as recruitment,” added chief executive Sarah Thomas.

“We are also calling for a national recruitment campaign that is underpinned by a more personal and child centered approach when a foster carer picks up the phone to enquire about fostering.”

Carers ‘are ignored and blamed’

The National Union of Professional Foster Carers, which represents about 8% of carers, said falling numbers were down to carers’ voices being “ignored” and them being “blamed whenever anything goes wrong”.

General secretary Robin Findlay said regional fostering recruitment hubs would not work when “current carers were leaving and advising prospective carers not to join”.

“Personal recommendation is the best way to recruit new carers but until the system is fixed and current carers treated fairly this will not happen,” he said.

Findlay said the union had put forward ideas to the DfE about changing the way allegations of harm or concerns about standards of care in relation to foster carers were handled.

He claimed that, currently, “fabrications take precedence over facts and evidence and the foster carers are often not invited to contribute to the fact finding until the matter has been self-investigated and decisions have already been made”.

Under the union’s proposed solution, providers and carers would both supply evidence to a legally-qualified external adjudicator, who would determine the outcome.

Allegation statistics

The number of abuse allegations made against foster carers in 2023-24 – 3,050 – was similar to levels seen in the previous two years, though above the numbers recorded in 2019-20 (2,495) and 2020-21 (2,600), showed the Ofsted figures.

Most of the allegations were made by foster children (1,880), with just over half concerning physical abuse (1,610) and almost a quarter (735) emotional abuse.

In about half of cases (1,595), the concern was resolved with no further action taken, while in 875 instances (28.7%), the concern remained and the issue was referred to the fostering panel. In the remainder (575), a period of continued monitoring was agreed.

More people are receiving adult social care in England following years of decline, official data shows.

Councils funded long-term care packages for 858,720 people during 2023-24, up 2.8% on the year before, which in turn followed a 2.1% rise in 2022-23, according to NHS England’s annual adult social care activity and finance report.

This took the number receiving care back up to levels last seen in 2017-18 and follows a 6.3% fall in recipients, from 872,520 to 817,915, between in 2015-16 and 2021-22.

As of 31 March 2024, 650,085 people were receiving long-term care, up from a low of 613,510 in March 2022 and the highest year-end total since 2017.

Alongside this, councils boosted the number of short-term care packages they delivered to maximise people’s independence, often known as reablement services. The number of these grew by 12.2% last year, from 251,255 to 281,850.

The increases in provision came on the back of a 4.2% increase in the number of requests for care, from 2,002,055 in 2022-23 to 2,085,720 to 2023-24.

Unmet need concerns

The decline in the numbers receiving long-term care from 2015-16 to 2021-22 came despite a 9.3% rise in the number of annual requests for care during that time, leading to significant concerns about unmet need having increased and councils rationing care in response to financial pressures.

While councils increased real-terms spending year-on-year during this time, these increases were not substantial, while think-tank the King’s Fund has pointed out that much of this was absorbed by Covid-related pressures or increases in the unit costs of services.

The NHS England report showed that real-terms funding grew much more quickly in 2023-24 (7.5%) than in previous years, with gross expenditure increasing by £3.4bn, in cash terms, to £27.1bn. This was driven by funding on long-term care, which grew by £3bn between 2022-23 and 2023-24, to £21.4bn.

As well as providing more people with care, the increased spending also went into significant rises in provider fees.

The average weekly fee paid to care home providers rose by 11.6% in cash terms, from £992.80 in 2022-23 to £1,108.40 in 2023-24. This was likely driven by high rates of inflation and a 9.7% rise in the national living wage in April 2023.

Injection of government cash

The increased spending in 2023-24 came on the back of the then government making significantly more resource available to councils in 2023-24, including by diverting funds earmarked for the overhaul of the adult social care charging system. This included:

• A £1.36bn real-terms boost to the social care grant, which can be used on both adults’ and children’s services.
• A £475m rise in the market sustainability and fair cost of care fund, designed to help councils increase fees to adult social care providers, cut waiting lists for services and tackle recruitment and retention issues.
• £307m through a new adult social care discharge fund, designed to help speed up hospital discharges.
• Permitting authorities to increase the adult social care council tax precept – whose proceeds are ring-fenced for the sector – by 2% in 2023-24, up from 1% in 2022-23.
• Allowing councils to raise general levels of council tax by 3% without the need for a local referendum, up from 2% the year before.

Highest overspend in a decade and Budget concerns

However, despite their increased funding, councils overspent their budgets by £586m, the highest level in a decade, in 2023-24, according to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ spring survey, carried out earlier this year.

And while councils have budgeted to increase adult social care spending by a further 9.1% in 2024-25 – on the back of another government funding boost – ADASS found that authorities were having to make £903m in savings this year, the highest annual level since 2016-17.

There are also huge concerns across the sector about the impact of last week’s Budget on funding levels for 2025-26. The government said councils’ overall resource would increase by about 3.2% next year, with an extra £600m earmarked for social care, a fund that is expected to be available for adults’ and children’s services.

However, adult sector leaders have warned that the £600m will be entirely swallowed up by the increased costs for adult social care providers of delivering a 6.7% rise in the national living wage – which will benefit many thousands of care workers – and an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions.

Improvement in timeliness of reviews

Alongside the growing number of people receiving care, councils also improved the timeliness of reviews of care and support plans in 2023-24, which are expected to take place every 12 months.

Of people who had been receiving long-term care for more than a year, 58.8% received a review during 2023-24, up from 57.1% in 2022-23.

This follows significant concerns about councils running long waiting lists for assessments, reviews and care packages in recent years.

But less funding for carer support

However, there was little improvement in provision for carers, with a 1.3% increase in the number receiving a service in 2023-24, from 356,235 to 360,815, which followed an 8.4% fall in numbers supported over the two preceding years.

Funding for carer support fell, meanwhile, from £195m in 2022-23 to £183m in 2023-24.

“These alarming figures show state funded support for carers in England has nosedived in recent years,” said charity the Carers Trust’s director of policy and public affairs, Dominic Carter.

“This is a travesty at a time when carers are taking on ever more responsibility and facing burnout as they prop up a health and social care system that’s been starved of funding.”

Children’s social care case numbers in England fell last year, official figures have shown.

Councils received fewer referrals and carried out fewer assessments in 2023-24 compared with 2022-23, according to the Department for Education’s annual children in need census.

As of 31 March 2024, authorities were supporting fewer children in need – a category that encompasses all those receiving a service from children’s social care – than they were 12 months earlier.

There was also a drop in the numbers on a child protection plan over the same period.

However, the number of child protection enquiries was stable year on year and well above pre-pandemic levels, while councils were also supporting more children in need than they were at the start of the decade.

Falling numbers of referrals

The number of referrals to children’s social care fell for a second consecutive year with 4.4% fewer received in 2023-24 (621,880) compared with 2021-22 (650,270). It was also below the level seen in the year before the pandemic (2019-20).

The fall over the past two years has been driven by a reduction in the number of referrals from the police, the biggest source of reported concerns to children’s social care. Constabularies sent in 177,210 referrals in 2023-24, down 7.6% on the 191,840 they sent in 2021-22.

Health and schools referral numbers have also fallen over the past two years, but more slowly.

The proportion of referrals that were re-referred within 12 months of a previous report was 22.4% in 2023-24, the same as in 2022-23 and a similar rate to each of the previous three years.

Outcomes of referrals

The percentage of referrals that resulted in no further action fell from 7.1% in 2022-23 to 6.3% in 2023-24, the same rate as that recorded in 2019-20.

The proportion of referrals that resulted in an assessment in which the child was found not to be in need was also at a similar level in 2023-24 (30.3%) as in 2019-20 (30.2%), though an increase on that recorded in 2022-23 (29.9%).

The number of completed assessments fell from 655,540 in 2022-23 to 643,170 in 2023-24, with the level also below the 665,660 carried out in 2019-20.

Assessments taking longer

The frequencies with which specific needs were recorded following an assessment in 2023-24 were similar to those in 2022-23.

As in the previous year, mental health and domestic abuse concerns about a parent were the two most commonly recorded factors, with each cited in just under one-third of cases where such information was recorded.

However, over time, the (median) average duration of assessments has increased, hitting 34 days in 2023-24, up from 33 in 2022-23 and 32 in 2019-20.

Children in need more likely to be older and from minority background

As of 31 March 2024, 399,460 children were classed as in need, a category that includes those on child in need (CIN) plans and child protection plans, looked-after children, disabled children and care leavers. This was down 0.9% on the level recorded in March 2023 (403,090) but up 2.6% on the March 2020 figure (389,260).

The proportion of children in need from an ethnic minority rose from 25% to 31% from 2015-24, exceeding the 27% of children in England and Wales who were from a minority, as recorded by the 2021 Census.

There has also been a shift in age, with those over 10 accounting for 59% of children in need in 2024, up from 48% in 2015.

Using data from 150 of the 153 authorities, the DfE estimated that 105,000 children were on CIN plans as of March 2024, the same as in 2023, but down from 110,000 in 2022. It said these figures should be treated with caution as this particular statistic was still in development and councils were likely to have variable recording practices for it.

Child protection enquiry numbers remain high

While the number of child protection enquiries fell from 2022-23 to 2023-24, this was only by 0.4%, and the number carried out (224,520) was significantly above the pre-pandemic total (201,000).

However, the number of children on child protection plans as of March 2024 by 1.7% on the previous year, reaching 49,900, the lowest year-end number since 2015.

The number of children on protection plans decreased across all categories of abuse – emotional, physical, multiple and sexual – in 2023-24, but rose by 1.2% for neglect. This remained the biggest category, accounting for just over half of all child protection plans (25,350 out of 49,900) as of March 2024.

While the overall number of plans recorded in 2024 was just 3.3% higher than a decade earlier, the number for neglect has grown by 21% over that time, a figure that prompted concerns from the NSPCC.

Concerns about rising levels of neglect

The charity’s associate head of policy, Abigail Gill, said: “Neglect is persistently the top concern reported to the NSPCC Helpline. We know that it can have a devastating impact on children, including on their physical and mental wellbeing, their attachment, and their brain development.

“We cannot continue on this trajectory. We need to see a national strategy put forward by government to support families earlier, so that we can prevent neglect before it damages their lives.”

The number of social workers employed by Scottish councils increased last year, official figures have shown.

At the end of 2023, authorities were employing a record 6,427 practitioners, up 2.5% on the year before (6,271), according to the Scottish Social Services Council’s (SSSC) annual data report on the country’s social care workforce.

On a full-time equivalent basis, the workforce grew by 2.9% from 5,716 to 5,880, a faster pace of growth than from 2021-22 (0.9%). The figures do not include practitioners working in adults’ services in Highland, who are employed by the NHS.

As in previous years, children’s social workers accounted for the greatest share of council-employed practitioners, though their recorded number fell from 2,774 to 2,720 year on year. Authorities employed 2,236 adults’ practitioners as of the end of last year, up from 2,156 the year before, while the number of generic practitioners fell from 391 to 297.

The SSSC reported a particularly sharp rise in the number of criminal justice social workers from 2022-23, from 950 to 1,174. However, the regulator told Community Care that this appeared to be caused by two authorities having changed their categorisation of some of the social workers they employed compared with previous years.

“We’ll check that categorisation as part of our current data collection on social workers and social worker vacancies, which we’re next due to report in November,” a spokesperson for the regulator said.

As in previous years, council practitioners accounted for about 60% of registered social workers in Scotland, whose numbers grew from 10,830 to 10,919 in the year to March 2024, according to separate SSSC data.

Meanwhile, the regulator also reported that the number of mental health officers (MHOs). employed by authorities has also grown, from 670 to 697 (4%) in 2022-23. MHOs are specialist social workers who assess people who are mentally unwell and who may need compulsory care.

The overall number of hours estimated to be spent on MHO duties each week in 2023 was 13,149, the highest since the SSSC started reporting this figure in 2016, and up from 12,752 in 2022.

However, despite this, councils reported an increasing shortage of MHO capacity, with an 11.8% rise, from 2,606 to 2,914, in the shortfall in mental health officer hours from 2022-23.

SSSC chief executive Maree Allison said: ”I’m pleased to see the number of active MHO posts and the number of people filling them both increased during 2023. However, we need to balance this against the reported shortfall in MHO duties increasing by 11.8% to 2,914 hours, which is higher than the previous two years.”