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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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.

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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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MPs have backed a plan enabling the government to regulate the use of agency staff in local authority children’s services.

The committee scrutinising the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill affirmed the measure, without any dissent, in a debate on the legislation yesterday (28 January).

However, opposition members raised concerns about the provision exacerbating workforce shortages in children’s social care and questioned what the government was doing to attract more people into permanent roles.

For the government, minister for school standards Catherine McKinnell said the measure would help tackle “the significant affordability and stability challenges that have arisen from the increase in the use and cost of agency workers in local authority children’s social care in England”.

Rising proportion of locum workers

The proportion of full-time equivalent (FTE) council children’s social workers who were locums rose from 15.5% to 17.8%, from 2021-23, according to Department for Education figures.

The rise coincided with increasing warnings from directors of children’s services about the practices of some agencies.

This included supplying authorities with project teams of agency workers, often managed externally, rather than filling the specific roles councils wanted to be filled, significantly inflating costs.

New rules on use of agency social workers

On the back of this, the previous government introduced rules restricting councils’ use of agency social workers last year; these will be fully in force by October of this year.

The rules include a ban on social workers without three years’ permanent experience taking up an agency post, a requirement that project teams be directly managed by local authorities and a three-month prohibition on staff who had just left a permanent role from taking up an agency position in the same region.

Councils were also tasked with agreeing regional caps on hourly pay for agency staff in different roles.

With the exception of a statutory requirement to supply the DfE with data on their agency usage, the rules have been issued under statutory guidance, meaning councils may deviate from them in exceptional circumstances.

Why government wants to legislate

McKinnell said this was one of the reasons the government planned to put its proposed restrictions on agency use into law.

“Guidance can be departed from in certain circumstances, so we feel introducing regulations on the use of agency workers is appropriate and proportionate.”

She said that by reducing their spend on agency workers, councils would be able to “invest more in services supporting children and families and enhance the offer to permanent employees”.

Though the provisions were not dissented from by the six opposition members on the 17-strong bill committee, both Conservative shadow education minister Neil O’Brien and Liberal Democrat counterpart Munira Wilson raised concerns about aspects of the plans.

Risk of councils being ‘micromanaged’

O’Brien said the bill would allow for ministers to take “very strong” powers to regulate the use of agency staff, enabling them to “micromanage” authorities, including by potentially directly setting pay rates in individual councils

He pointed to the “huge variations” in rates of agency use – which ranged from 0 to 50% in 2023 between council areas – as meaning that “applying the same rules or caps or limits to places facing totally different situations [was] a risky thing to do”.

He also warned that, without addressing the supply of social workers, “crudely trying to cap prices runs the risk of simply leading to more vacancies”.

Tackling root causes of staff choosing agency work

For the Lib Dems, Wilson said she recognised the need to promote a more stable workforce because of the impact on children of multiple changes in social workers. However, echoing O’Brien, she said there was nothing in the bill that would address the reasons why practitioners choose agency work.

“I’d like to hear from the minister whether they have workforce strategy to address the root causes that we have more and more social workers opting for agency contracts, which is neither good for the taxpayer, not good for the child’s experiences.”

In response, McKinnell said that the government recognised that “regulation alone [was] not the answer”, and that it was working with councils to attract and retain staff and provide “positive working environments for all who work in children’s social care”.

She stressed that the legislation would require the government to consult before drawing up the regulations, and it was committed to working with the sector to ensure the measures were “proportionate and effective”.

What’s next for the bill?

The committee will continue to scrutinise the bill in detail, potentially amending it in the process. Given Labour’s majority, such amendments will only pass with the government’s support.

Following the committee stage, the bill will be reconsidered by the whole House of Commons at the report stage, where it can be amended further, and at its third reading, where it will be voted on as a whole.

After that, the bill will pass to the House of Lords for consideration. Should peers revise the legislation, the two houses will need to then agree a common version of the bill, though peers will generally give way to MPs on this.

The youngest children are at increased risk of harm due to growth in the numbers of parents with mental health and substance misuse issues, research has found.

Directors linked the trends in parental needs to poverty, inadequate housing and the legacy of pandemic, and said they were leaving infants at risk of neglect and physical injury.

The findings were reported in the latest phase of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services’ (ADCS) Safeguarding Pressures research series, through which it has analysed demand for, and provision of, children’s social care since 2010.

Phase 9 of the series covered 2022-24 and was based on data from 124 local authorities, extrapolated to cover all 153 councils, survey responses from 86 authorities and interviews with 34 directors of children’s services.

Growth in parental mental ill-health and substance misuse

Department for Education (DfE) data has revealed growth in the numbers of children in need assessments which identified parental mental health or substance misuse problems between 2022 and 2024. According to the DfE’s children in need census:

• Parental mental health concerns were identified 165,480 times in 2023-24, up from 158,330 in 2021-22, a rise of 4.5%. This made it the most common factor identified following an assessment, replacing domestic abuse where a parent is the victim, for which there were 160,600 cases in 2023-24, a similar number to 2021-22.
• Parental alcohol misuse concerns were identified 72,410 times in 2023-24, up 3% on 2021-22 (70,310).
• Parental drug misuse concerns were identified 70,940 times in 2023-24, up 5.8% on 2021-22 (67,010).

Three-quarters of respondents to the ADCS survey said issues arising from a deterioration in parental mental health had increased pressures on their services over the past two years, while two-thirds said the same about parental substance misuse.

Increased numbers of infants at risk

Directors said this was leading to increasing numbers of infants being at risk of, or experiencing, serious harm, particularly neglect or physical injury, and they linked the rising levels of parental need to family levels, poverty and inadequate housing.

Most directors reported increasing demand for children’s services from poor quality housing, homelessness and families experiencing poverty as a result of welfare reforms.

They also linked increasing parental mental health issues to the legacy of the pandemic, new parents lacking experiences of “good enough parenting” from their own childhoods and cuts to other services, such as health visiting provision.

In response to the findings, sector what works body Foundations said they underlined “the need to provide effective mental health support for parents”, including through parenting support. Its deputy chief executive, Donna Molloy, said it would shortly produce guidance for councils on “proven interventions” in relation to parenting support for families in contact with children’s social care.

Rising numbers of initial contacts but referral numbers fall

Councils reported a rise in initial contacts regarding safeguarding concerns, continuing a trend dating back to 2007-8, with the number received in 2023-24 (3,001,339) 8% up on the 2021-22 total. Two-thirds of the 2023-24 contacts came from the police, health or education.

However, the DfE’s census has shown a decrease in the number of referrals to children’s social care, which fell from 650,270 in 2021-22 to 621,880 in 2023-24, as well as in the number of children in need plans and child protection plans from 2022-24.

The ADCS found that councils accepted 22% of contacts in 2023-24 as a children’s social care referral (compared with 24% in 2021-22). Fourteen per cent were passed to early help (down from 16% in 2021-22), 30% signposted to other services or resulting in the provision of information and advice (33% in 2021-22) and 23% resulted in no further action, up from 16% in 2021-22.

“This suggests that much of this demand is being managed through an increased early help offer and by local authorities acting as a central point for offering information, advice and signposting to other services on behalf of the local partnership,” the ADCS said.

Increased use of early help

Despite the drop in the proportion of contacts referred to early help from 2022-24, the ADCS said the number of such referrals had grown by 93% from 2015-16 to 2023-24, from about 224,000 to 431,000.

Two-thirds of survey respondents said they had increased their provision of early help and targeted family support services from 2022-24. This included the establishment of family hubs, which provide a range of support services to families in a single place and for which half of local authority areas have received funding since 2022.

The ADCS said family hubs were “viewed very positively” by directors, with three-quarters of survey respondents saying they had set up such services, including some who had not received government funding.

The association added that councils had also relied heavily on funding from the Supporting Families programme, under which families with multiple needs are provided with multi-agency support, co-ordinated by a lead practitioner, and for which councils have been provided with £695m from 2022-25.

Last November, in a move strongly welcomed by ADCS, the government scrapped the payment by results element of the scheme, under which most councils received some money up front with the rest delivered based on the outcomes achieved for families.

Rollout of family help

Looking ahead, the government has allocated £250m in 2025-26 to roll out the family help model, under which councils provide multidisciplinary support to families in need by merging existing targeted early help and child in need services and bringing in staff with expertise in areas such as domestic abuse.

The model is being tested in the 10 families first for children pathfinder areas, though ADCS found that some other councils were adopting a similar approach.

In relation to looked-after children, the ADCS report charted the significant rise in the number of unaccompanied children, which grew by 30% from 2022-24, from 5,680 to 7,380, according to DfE figures.

The ADCS also highlighted the changing composition of the group, with the proportion of boys rising from 90% to 96%, and the proportion of those aged 16 or 17 increasing from 86% to 89%, from 2020-24.

Concerns over care of unaccompanied children and care leavers

Despite the government’s National Transfer Scheme – which aims to ensure unaccompanied children are more evenly spread throughout the country – the ADCS found numbers were far higher in the South East, where the vast majority of young people arrive, than in other regions.

Directors said that the “absence of national planning and support to enable an effective and sustainable asylum system was a source of real concern”. They also reported struggling to provide young people with the trauma-informed care and support they needed.

The ADCS also highlighted the number of care leavers who were former unaccompanied children, which grew by 25%, from 11,640 to 14,560, from 2022-24, and warned that councils were being under-funded to support them.

‘Shortfall in care leaver funding leaving young people at risk’

It cited a report last year by East Midlands Councils, which said that Home Office funding covered just 59% of the costs of supporting former unaccompanied care leavers, with the region’s annual shortfall in cash rising from £5.2m to £7.5m from 2020-24.

“Respondents to both the survey and interviews described how a lack of access to education, employment and appropriate therapeutic support leaves young people in limbo, exacerbating
mental health difficulties, risk of exploitation and involvement in unlawful activity, such as modern slavery,” the ADCS said.

A growing workforce but concerns over experience and agency use

The Safeguarding Pressures report also referenced the fact that the number of social workers in post in local authority children’s services reached a record high – 33,119 full-time equivalents – in September 2023, up by 4.7% on the year before.

The ADCS said that the increased numbers were largely newly qualified staff, “which can create pressures on more experienced colleagues”.

The report also noted that the number of agency staff in post also reached a record high (7,174 full-time equivalents) in September 2023, representing 17.8% of the workforce.

The association said that, while the 10 authorities with the lowest rates of agency use were all rated outstanding or good by Ofsted, seven of the 10 with the highest rates were rated inadequate with another two graded as requires improvement.

“[Directors] report that a negative judgement following inspection by Ofsted generates increased staff churn and reliance on agency social workers,” the report said.

Agency social work rules

In October 2024, the government began implementing rules on councils’ use of agency social work, which will be fully in force by October 2025. These include:

• A bar on staff with less than three years’ experience in a permanent role in local authority children’s services from taking up an agency post.
• A three-month ban on councils engaging social workers as locums within three months of them leaving a permanent role in the same region.
• Regionally agreed caps on maximum hourly pay rates for agency staff.
• Ensuring councils have direct management of staff supplied through agency project teams.

The ADCS is very supportive of the rules, but have called on the government to go further, by banning project teams outright for case-holding social work.

While the government has not committed to this, it has pledged to strengthen the agency rules by putting them into legislation and to extend them to non-social work roles in children’s services.

The government plans to strengthen recently introduced agency social work rules by putting them into law, in a move dubbed “reckless” by recruitment firm leaders.

The Department for Education (DfE) also intends to extend the rules to non-social work staff in children’s services, it said in  a children’s social care reform policy paper published this week.

This came just weeks after the rules limiting English local authorities’ use of agency social workers in children’s services were introduced, though they will not be fully implemented until 1 October 2025.

The rules (see box below), which include capping agency pay rates regionally and barring those without three years’ experience from working as locums, have been set out in statutory guidance, a decision made by the previous Conservative government.

This means that councils should comply with the rules unless exceptional circumstances arise.

Putting agency rules into law

The Labour administration said it wanted “to legislate to allow us to go further than statutory guidance in regulating the use of agency” and reduce the number of locums in children’s services from a record 7,200 in September 2023.

This would involve using forthcoming legislation – most likely, the Children’s Wellbeing Bill – to give the government the power to make regulations governing councils’ use of agency social workers in children’s services.

Unlike with statutory guidance, councils would be legally bound to follow such regulations.

The DfE said the regulations were likely to cover councils’ oversight of, and accountability for, agency workers’ practice, pay and labour costs and quality assurance issues, such as minimum experience requirements and pre-employment checks.

These are all covered by the existing rules, so it is not clear whether the government wants to strengthen the content of the rules as well as their legal status.

Extending rules to non-social workers

However, the DfE said did want to extend the rules beyond social workers to a wider group of staff. Though it did not specify roles, it referenced non-social work staff who held child in need cases under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, as is now explicitly permitted under Working Together to Safeguard Children.

It said it wanted to avoid the rules creating perverse incentives, for example, leading to a growth in agency staff numbers among non-social workers.

‘Children and families deserve stable relationships’

In a statement on Labour’s policy proposals in the House of Lords this week, education minister Jacqui Smith said: “While agency workers can help to manage fluctuations in demand, they are no substitute for a permanent workforce.

“Children and families deserve stable professional relationships. We will therefore limit the use of agency social workers by local authorities, acting to reverse the alarming increase in their prevalence.”

She told peers that this would involve ensuring that “the workforce has the right environment to thrive in, personally and professionally”.

Smith pointed to the work of the DfE-commissioned national workload action group, which has been tasked with identifying, and providing solutions to, unnecessary drivers of workload for social workers.

The current agency rules have proved divisive, with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) supportive but wanting them toughened up and agency leaders raising concerns.

Unsurprisingly, agency heads voiced opposition to the DfE’s plans for legislation.

Government plan dubbed ‘reckless’

Kate Shoesmith, deputy chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said: “Introducing sweeping legislation on statutory guidelines before understanding their real-world impact is reckless.

“Flexibility is the lifeblood for many in the sector, if we push to curtail agency work without proper evaluation, we risk losing the very workers we need most.”

Jonathan Wadsworth, managing director of recruitment firm Charles Hunter Associates, said: “Enforcing legislative power to further restrict support from agency providers is simply turning a blind eye as to why there are such high vacancy rates in the first place. Local authorities are not retaining their permanent workforce and this needs addressing first.”

For the ADCS, workforce policy committee chair Nicola Curley said: “ADCS has worked with the department over the last couple of years on a range of measures aimed at limiting the use of agency social workers and we are pleased that this is now reaching fruition formally. We will continue to engage with government on the next phase of its social care reforms.”

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.

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.

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.

Rules curbing English councils’ use of agency social workers in children’s services come into force today, with the implementation of statutory guidance on their use.

Under the policy, authorities will be 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 Department for Education (DfE) rules are controversial, with the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) seeing them as vital to reducing the costs of locums and promoting workforce stability, but the agency sector warning that they will exacerbate authorities’ shortages of social workers. As of September 2023, 18.9% of full-time equivalent social work posts in council children’s services lay vacant, with 17.8% of roles filled by a locum.

The division of views was evident in reactions to the rules’ implementation today.

Rules ‘will enable better support for children’

ADCS workforce policy committee chair Nicola Curley said: “Children and families tell us they benefit from having a consistent worker who builds a strong meaningful relationship with them, yet the short-term nature of agency social work and the level of turnover, including churn amongst agency workers makes this more difficult to achieve.

“These standards will enable us to better support the children and families we work with while enabling some flexibility to remain in terms of what our agency workforce can provide.”

However, for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), deputy chief executive Kate Shoesmith said: “There’s a notable uncertainty across the sector regarding how the new rules will be implemented and enforced, which isn’t ideal on the launch day of such important directives.

Ongoing social worker shortages ‘a pressing issue’

“It’s premature to assess the impact of these changes, but the ongoing shortage of social workers and their desire for flexible work arrangements remain pressing issues.

“More broadly, it’s uncertain whether there are enough staff to meet the demands of social work under these new regulations, and whether the often-challenging working conditions will improve. Additionally, we need to keep a close eye on how frequently local authorities resort to the ‘break glass’ provision to exceed price caps.”

Following consultation, the DfE softened its initial proposals, including by dropping plans to ban the use of project teams outright and allowing councils to exceed pay caps.

DfE ‘has taken into account agencies’ views’

Reflecting this, recruitment body APSCo said the concerns raised by its members during the consultation process had been heard by the department.

Its global public policy director, Tania Bowers, said: “Overall, our members feel that their views were taken into account in the final DfE statutory rules for local authorities. This includes giving far more clarity around the use of project teams, notice periods and qualification periods required.

“Authorities are pleased about the reporting obligations and transparency. However, we know some local authorities are concerned that the rules will only work if all authorities properly apply them and create a level playing field. There are extreme talent shortages in the sector and local authorities are under a lot of budgetary pressures, which will only have been slightly alleviated by the recent Budget.”

Staged implementation of rules

The rules will be implemented in four stages:

• From 31 October 2024, councils will be expected to follow statutory guidance on the rules, meaning they should comply with it other than in exceptional circumstances. In practice, they will be expected to comply with all of the rules, except those on price caps, for new agency staff assignments, unless where contractually prohibited.
• From 1 January 2025, councils must start collecting data for the quarterly collection, with the first submission, covering the first quarter of 2025, due in April or May 2025.
• In June and July 2025, councils will be expected to agree price caps within their regions, submitting these to the DfE by 1 August 2025.
• From 1 October 2025, the price caps should be applied to all new agency assignments, with all other assignments following as soon as possible thereafter. By the same date, the rules in general should be in force for all contractual arrangements to hire agency staff.

Government agency social work rules will not reduce councils’ reliance on locums in children’s services, say practitioners.

The rules, which will start to take effect at the end of this month, aim “to reduce the overreliance on and costs of agency child and family social workers” for English councils, says the Department for Education (DfE).

They will require authorities to agree regional pay caps for locums’ hourly rates and refrain from hiring early career practitioners, or staff who have recently left permanent roles in the same region, as agency workers.

Policy will have ‘no impact’ on locum use

However, most social workers (78%) believe the rules will have no impact on authorities’ use of agency staff because of high vacancy levels, according to a Community Care poll that received 775 votes.

Just 11% said the use of locums would fall “by a small amount”, with the same proportion saying it would “reduce significantly”.

As of September 2023, 18.9% of full-time equivalent social work posts in council children’s services lay vacant.

Pay cap ‘will be breached’

In the related article, Andrew McKenzie won agreement from fellow readers in a detailed comment setting out why he thought the rules would have no impact.

In relation to the pay caps, he said: “Some regional areas will achieve the implementation of an initial pay cap, as they have done so in the past, then acute need will drive permissible breaches of the cap (why do you think the guidance allows for breaches?), in areas where staff shortages become acute.”

Mr Wong predicted the changes would be “short-lived” because of councils’ struggles to retain and recruit staff and questioned the legality of refusing to hire agency workers based on their recent departure from permanent positions.

Meanwhile, agency staff took to the comments, warning of their intentions to quit if their pay was cut.

“If my hourly rate changes I’m leaving the profession,” said one. 

“I’ve been agency for 10 years and loved how ‘office politics’ no longer affected me as I go in and get the job done. I refuse to work for less pay. I’d rather just leave.”

Rules may ‘adversely impact services’

Ohers claimed that the rules could be detrimental to services.

“Children’s services are run by the unpaid goodwill and overtime work of social workers and, particularly, agency workers,” said J. Rahman.

“The changes may adversely impact services and have a ripple effect on the children and families who need support and protection.”

Agency workers used as ‘scapegoats’

One practitioner raised concerns that locums were being blamed for wider sector issues.

“Instead of looking at the workers who are plugging the gaps, why don’t we consider the private residential care at untold costs,” they said.

“If permanent workers were paid fairly, agency [wouldn’t be] enticing.”

Julie echoed this sentiment, criticising the “scapegoating” of agency workers, while another social worker, Hayley, said the changes ignored “the actual problems”.

“The sad fact is children’s services would fall [apart] without agency workers stepping in. [They] are broken and not fit for purpose.

Looking at the bigger picture

Several practitioners urged a deeper look at why permanent staff were leaving for agency roles in the first place.

Pauline said: “Instead of pitching agency workers against permanent ones, why not look at why agency workers are employed in the first place? Why [can’t] a manager keep a team of social workers together? It is not merely about resources.

“If a worker feels safe, valued, supported and receives sound leadership, why would they want to leave? Where are the support systems, the unions, HR departments, and agency representatives to safeguard the interest and safety of the workers?”

Clair called for a change in how overworked staff were treated, to stop them being pushed to quit or join agencies.

“Let’s start paying our social workers for the hours they work, rather than 37 hours. Stop blaming agency workers and look at the issue of why we can’t retain staff.”

Councils are being given £1,125 each to meet new requirements to report on their use of agency social workers in children’s services.

The Department for Education funding, which will be paid in October 2024, is designed to cover the burdens on English authorities of fulfilling a new legal duty to submit quarterly data to the DfE on each assignment carried out by an agency social worker and their use of locums more generally.

The data collection is part of new rules designed to limit councils’ use of agency social workers in children’s services, which will start coming into force at the end of October 2024.

Agency social work data requirements

Assignment data must include the role type, hourly pay rate, start and end dates, the social worker’s registration number and details of whether they are part of project teams or packaged models.

General data must include the local authority’s degree of compliance with each rule, explanations for non-compliance, details of price cap breaches, including who signed them off, a list of agencies whose behaviour affected rule compliance and the total monthly cost of the agency workforce.

The first quarter for which data will be collected is January to March 2025, for which councils must submit the required information to the department between between 1 April 2025 and 31 May 2025.

Mapping social work jobs

Before that point, authorities must conduct an exercise mapping children’s social work roles that could be covered by locums to one of five categories: social worker, senior social worker, advanced practitioner, team manager or independent reviewing officer/conference chair.

They must submit their job mapping templates to the DfE by 15 November 2024. These will be cross-checked for consistency, with authorities needing to submit amended templates by 31 January 2025.

The DfE is providing councils with £172,148 in total for the data collection, and said that it would be discussing progress on meeting the requirements through research and regional discussions with authorities.

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Rules curbing councils’ use of agency social workers in children’s services will start coming into force next month, the Department for Education (DfE) has announced.

Under the policy, English authorities will be 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 DfE said the rules – part of the previous government’s Stable Homes, Built on Love children’s social care reforms – were designed “to reduce the overreliance on and costs of agency child and family social workers” to authorities, saving them money and improving continuity of support for children.

The proportion of agency staff in the children’s services workforce rose sharply between 2021 and 2023, from 15.5% to 17.8% of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.

During the same period, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) issued repeated warnings that agencies had started engaging in “profiteering” in the face of councils’ increasing recruitment struggles, including by limiting the supply of locums to so-called project teams, driving up cost.

The ADCS welcomed the introduction of the rules, however, agency body the Recruitment and Confederation (REC) said it remained concerned that they may exacerbate social work’s recruitment and retention problems.

How the policy has changed

The proposed rules have undergone multiple changes since being proposed in February 2023.

Notably, the DfE dropped initial proposals to tie locum pay to that of practitioners in equivalent permanent roles, in favour of regionally agreed price caps.

It also ditched a proposed ban on the use of project teams, allowing authorities to continue using them so long as they retained management control over them and were able to approve the hiring of each practitioner.

The ADCS criticised the latter decision as blunting the rules’ potential to support continuity of support for children and tackle the practice of agencies restricting the supply of agency staff to teams, rather than individual locums.

The DfE subsequently confirmed that councils would be able to breach regional price caps, though would need to report all such breaches to the department.

Changes to price cap plans

Following consultation on the statutory guidance, at the start of 2024, the DfE has made further changes to the plans.

While price caps were previously designed to cover the total cost to councils of hiring an agency worker, including agency and managed service provider (MSP) fees, they will now just cover the locum’s hourly pay, including employers’ national insurance contributions and holiday pay.

This was primarily in response to concerns about councils having to share details with regional partners about agency and MSP fees, which are commercially sensitive.

More clarity on notice periods and implementation date

On notice periods, some respondents criticised the DfE’s proposal to simply align these with those for permanent staff in similar roles, on the grounds that this would remove the flexibility that was integral to agency work.

In response, the department has introduced a standard four-week notice period for locums, with shorter periods used where these aligned with arrangements for equivalent permanent staff.

Also, the DfE has introduced a cut-off date – 1 October 2025 – for councils to bring all their contractual arrangements into line with the rules, having previously said this should happen “as soon as reasonably possible”.

This was in response to calls for greater clarity and to improve compliance with the rules.

No ban on project teams but DfE will review approach

While the DfE rejected calls from the ADCS and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) for the rules to prohibit the use of project teams, it said it remained open to tightening its proposed arrangements.

“We will review the efficacy of this approach and remain open to further restrictions on local authority use of project teams or other
packaged models to ensure every model of resourcing social workers supports the best interests of children and families.”

Directors welcome rules in face of ‘high costs’ of agency workforce

The ADCS welcomed the pledge to review project team rules.

Vice president Rachael Wardell said: “ADCS is clear social work is not a short-term project, at the heart of good social work with children and families is building long lasting relationships in order to empower those we work with to make positive, sustained changes in their lives.”

More broadly, she said the agency rules would “allow us to better support the children and families that we work with while maintaining a sufficiently flexible agency workforce”.

“Recruiting and retaining a permanent stable social work workforce is an increasing challenge for local authorities as is our overreliance on agency workers and the high costs associated with agency use,” she added

“Children and families tell us they benefit from having a consistent worker who builds a strong meaningful relationship with them, yet the short-term nature of agency social work and the level of turnover, including churn amongst agency workers, makes this more difficult to achieve.”

Agency sector concerns

For agency sector body the REC, deputy chief executive Kate Shoesmith welcomed the fact that the government had recognised the “important role agency workers, interims and locums play in children and family services”, driven by “growing demand on social services, increasing pressure on social workers and a strong desire for flexible working are key drivers”.

She also acknowledged “encouraging” changes made since the policy was first proposed last year, including allowing councils to breach agency pay caps.

However, she added: “It is going to be vitally important that each measure is fully evaluated so the proposals set out today do not exacerbate the significant recruitment and retention crisis in the UK social care sector.”

The rules do not apply to local authority adults’ services or any other sector of social work employment in England.