Agency social workers numbers are coming down in children’s services in England following significant increases in their use by councils in recent years, a sector leader has said.
Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Andy Smith told Community Care he believed the trend was the result of the planned introduction of rules later this year to curb councils’ use of locums.
Rules on locum social work
The rules are part of the previous government’s Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy to reform children’s social care and are designed to cut the costs of agency work while improving continuity of support for children and families.
They include a ban on anyone without three years’ experience in a permanent role in children’s services from taking up a locum role, a requirement for councils to agree regional price caps on what they pay agencies and a restriction on the use of agency project teams.
Agency social worker numbers have escalated in recent years on the back of councils’ increasing struggles to recruit and retain social workers in children’s services.
As of September 2023, locums represented 17.8% of the children’s social work workforce in English councils, up from 15.5% in 2021.
‘Numbers of agency workers falling’
However, Smith said there was evidence that this trend was reversing.
“There’s certainly data showing that the numbers of agency social workers are going in the right direction, are reducing,” said Smith, who is strategic director of people services at Derby council.
“Certainly, in my local area, in the East Midlands, we’re seeing that across all 10 local authorities. So our hypothesis is that the impact of the reforms that are clearly going to come into effect as we move into the autumn are starting to potentially have an effect in the right direction.”
Under plans set by the previous government, statutory guidance requiring councils to follow most of the rules would come into force this summer, with requirements relating to the price caps and data collection being implemented in the autumn.
While the new Labour government has not yet commented on publicly on the plans, Smith said he expected the statutory guidance to come into force in September, in a speech to last week’s ADCS conference.
Disappointment over project team reversal
The ADCS has campaigned strongly for curbs on the agency social work market since 2021 and Smith said the DfE’s proposals were “writ large” with the association’s ideas.
However, he added that it remained disappointed by the previous government’s decision to reverse its initial plan to completely ban the use of project teams.
These involve councils hiring agency workers en masse, often with their own management and restrictions on caseloads.
ADCS has long warned that agencies have increasingly restricted the supply of locums to project teams, preventing councils from engaging individual workers to fill gaps and charging them more per practitioner.
The number of social workers hired through teams rose fivefold from January to June 2021 to the same period in 2022, according to ADCS research.
‘Opportunity’ with new government to reinstate ban
However, the department dropped the idea of a complete ban, after some respondents to the initial consultation on the rules said there using them was appropriate where caseloads, staff absences or vacancies were high, or to support struggling authorities.
Smith said ADCS was disappointed by this “U-turn”, but added that having a new government presented the opportunity to reinstate the planned ban.
“In the first conversation I have with the minister who will have the children’s social care brief that is on the list to talk to her about,” he said.
“They could do that tomorrow. That could be done really easily and it would send out, I think, a really strong message to the sector that government is listening and it sees the value of relationships and relational social work. Social work is not a project.”
Children’s social care reform plans
In his speech to the ADCS conference, Smith also stressed the urgency of implementing the sector reforms proposed by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and taken forward in Stable Homes, Built on Love.
Besides the agency social work rules, these are designed to ensure that many more children are supported to stay with their families or, where this not possible, with kinship carers; that those at risk are much better protected than is currently the case, and that children who go into care receive a much better experience and, as a result, better life chances than now.
The care review projected that the reforms would cost £2.6bn over four years but would save money in the long-term by reducing the projected care population by 30,000 – roughly 30% – within 10 years.
So far, the DfE has committed £200m to testing the proposed changes, for example, through the 10 “pathfinder” areas trialling the deployment of family help teams, merging child in need and targeted early help services, and specialist child protection practitioners.
Reform cost now ‘more than £2.6bn proposed by care review’
“We simply can’t afford to derail the plans or indeed take our foot of the gas; both in terms of children’s outcomes and the finances that we are diligently trying to balance day in, day out,” said Smith in his speech.
“The longer we leave it, the more it will cost; we need to reset the system now.”
Smith told Community Care that what was required now was more than £2.6bn because of increases in service costs since the care review’s final report in May 2022.
He said he had raised the issue with new education secretary Bridget Phillipson in an initial call with her last week.
Smith also called on the government to widen the focus of children’s social care reform beyond councils to their key partners.
“We can’t realise the ambition around any reforms, and really improve outcomes for children, if it’s just seen as a local authority endeavour, he said. “It has to engage health, it has to engage the police, both strategically and on the ground, and that was really missing in the run-up to the general election.”
‘Really difficult choices’ needed on funding services
During the election, Labour made no funding commitments in relation to children’s social care, despite the Local Government Association saying councils would need an extra £5bn in 2026-27 compared with 2023-24 to maintain provision at existing levels.
At the same time, the incoming government has pledged not to raise income tax rates, national insurance, VAT or corporation tax and set itself tight fiscal rules limiting how much it can borrow to fund public spending.
Funding for councils from 2025 onwards is due to be set out in a spending review this autumn and Smith stressed that “really difficult choices” would have to be made, though this could include using existing resource in a different way.
Call to pool budgets for children with mental health
For example, he suggested pooling NHS and local authority resources to support children with significant mental health needs in an arrangement similar to the better care fund (BCF) in adults’ services.
The BCF pools local authority and NHS funding locally to help people live independently at home for longer and enable them to receive care in the most appropriate place, for example, by tackling delayed discharges from hospital. It has enabled what would previously have been NHS resource to be spent on adult social care services.
Councils have struggled significantly with finding appropriate placements for children in care with severe mental health needs. This has led to them to seeking high numbers of so-called deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders from the High Court to authorise very restrictive care arrangements, often in unregistered settings.
At the same time, some council heads have criticised the NHS for reducing support for these young people through child and adolescent mental health services.
Smith said a BCF-style arrangement could help lever investment into preventive services to avoid councils having to source expensive and restrictive placements through DoL orders.
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The only reason agency usage is going down is because you aren’t able to source the workers.
They aren’t working for you are they?
They are choosing to withdraw from the profession perhaps, fed up with what it has become
There is an increase in International Social Workers.
how the hell can a profession so dismissive of all things smacking of managerialism invent so many stupid proxy measures for itself …
… as with Counting Cumbria the MacAlister Review will add to not decrease the requirements for scrutiny and oversight ~ the legacy of personality-based policy does not improve children’s services or outcomes for the child…
… the whole agency v council dualistic narrative hasn’t bottomed out it’s root cause(s) ~ the complexities lived through by children and their families outpace the ability of the services tobe adapt and meet their needs; it’s called having requisite variety and a viable system…
… ditching all the headline statements and getting real is the first step ~ the MacAlister Review and the previous Camilla Cavendish FT unofficial IPO requires a discerning eye ….
… I am yet to see an actual Framework Agreement although everyone talks of having one ~ when such decision-making is wide of the scope of the actual decision makers it’s likely to create more voids…
… mind the gaps, eh! …
Some of us are interested in the same jobs needing people . Why can’t the government offer training opportunities. We are here in the UK and can’t even train to be social workers, what a shame!
If locum Social Workers could be paid the same salary as permanent Practitioners.They will ultimayely opt for a permanent job.Tjey ate aytracted by the money not the passion.Social Work requirs consistency not someone coming for three months, quick fix and leave .In most cases, the permanent staff a left to pick up the pieces.No, quality work at all.
Think that is really scapgoating agency sw we will stay for as long as if the culture is okay bullying and overload of cases is the main reason we leave permanent staff are protected more also setting agency against permanent staff is unhelpful we should all stand together and fight against the working conditions
I don’t agree.
Oh dear Connie what a dismissive, uniformed and short-sighted view you have.
I totally agree with you Anna.
I am passionate about being a social worker and have chosen to be agency for 20 years. If you were to come to my home you’d see I am not materialistic. Being an agency worker suits my lifestyle. I don’t need to explain that to anyone but me and mine.
I mainly work in the Midlands but have also worked in different parts of the UK, again through choice. I also like weekly pay.
Hear this; In some local authorities if it wasn’t for agency workers they wouldn’t have a service.
Every where I have worked I have met workers who work hard and are committed to our profession.
I have also met and am aware of the ‘sicky, sicky brigade’ who take sick leave at the ‘drop of a hat’. There are also workers who ‘stagnate for years on end’/won’t come out of their comfort zones and are simply not fit for purpose. They are also unlikely to be offered a role elsewhere.
If I don’t work, I don’t get paid! I was hospitalised with covid in 2021 and had to take 4 months off. I managed financially because I saved my hard earned cash.
My advice to you Connie; Come over to the dark side and see how long you last? Probably not very long.
I know I am a damn good Social worker who is nearly 60 years of age and still enjoy working on the front line.
There’s 20 years work then, of course there’s 20 years experience…What do you have?
Lastly, the amount of incompetence I have observed by some ‘permanent’ staff is incredulous AND it appears to go unchallenged by self appointed not fit for purpose so called ‘team managers’..(getting younger and younger)…. We wonder why our profession is in the state it is? Endless!
Absolutely 100% agree with both Anna and Christina. Agency staff are often also overloaded and expected to pick up cases that perm staff are often protected from.
We work hard. Form the same relationships and give great service.
We add to the team we are in at any one time but senior managers often fail to see our real value added.
You clearly have no experience of being an agency social worker and have bought into the scapegoating, generic, limited and inaccurate picture of agency social workers.
Agency social workers, do not get excessively paid over permanent staff, as we pay more tax & NI than perm staff. Also we don’t get sick pay or holiday pay.
What agency work can offer is the ability to leave local authorities where their are bullying cultures, poor leadership and high caseload than if we were permanent, which I have seen and experienced when permanent for the first six years of my career.
I have held agency positions for periods of a year, and two years in different authorities, as well as shorter lengths, so please don’t perpetuate the three month myth. If workers only stay for short periods, maybe ask why? What’s the culture, behaviour and expectations placed on workers when they come to failing authorities but can’t turn the tide of poor practice & poor outcomes for children.
Are their agency works who are lazy, don’t pull their weight and don’t support families well, of course, just like there are permanent workers who do that too.
Don’t jump on the bandwagon, use your analytical skills, many children’s services provide a poor service to children and families and the answers and solutions are not as simple as permanent v agency staff, they include ineffective leadership, funding, council priorities, different social issues in different authorities including poverty, poor housing, crime, inequality.
Also look at the salaries of children’s services senior leaders and ask yourself why people on such huge salaries considered the ‘brightest and the best’ haven’t solved the issues in decades?
I left local authority social work in Northern Ireand because of toxic culture and systemic failures. I went agency for a couple of years before a ban on using agency workers. I left the nhs am now an independent social worker and will not work for a local trust in the future. I am now bring approached by other experienced social workers looking to follow in my path. Be warned, forcing staff to take permanent jobs will leave you with no staff. Just look at what’s happening in Northern Ireand now with children’s teams striking dues to unsafe staffing levels.
I have been agency for 10 years and often I cover 4 people’s roles for £350 a day. Inside IR35 so 40% tax, pay sick pay, pension, same as all other perm staff. But never get it back if you take leave they say goodbye to you. Sometimes your kept on week to week so no stability. You can’t go off sick. People think we are all millionaires but it just isn’t true because of IR35. All that will change with goverment legislation is everything will be classed as project work and they will keep hiring.