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.
The agency social work rules
- Councils should work within regions to agree and implement maximum hourly pay rates for agency practitioners (including employers’ national insurance contributions and holiday pay) in each of the following roles: social worker, senior social worker, advanced practitioner, team manager and independent reviewing officer/conference chair. Implementation: caps should be agreed in summer 2025 and implemented from 1 October 2025 for all new agency assignments and for all existing arrangements shortly thereafter.
- In all contractual arrangements to supply social workers through project teams or packaged arrangements, all workers are identified and approved by the local authority in advance, costs are disaggregated for each worker and any other service and councils maintain complete control of practice. Implementation: 31 October 2024 for all contracts to supply new agency staff, unless prevented by existing contractual obligations, and by 1 October 2025 for all contracts for agency assignments.
- Notice periods for agency social workers should be four weeks or in line with that for permanent social workers in the same or equivalent roles where the latter is shorter. Implementation: 31 October 2024 for all contracts to supply new agency staff, unless prevented by existing contractual obligations, and by 1 October 2025 for all contracts for agency assignments.
- Councils should not engage social workers as locums within three months of them leaving a permanent post in the same region. Implementation: 31 October 2024 for all contracts to supply new agency staff, unless prevented by existing contractual obligations, and by 1 October 2025 for all contracts for agency assignments.
- Councils should only use agency social workers with a minimum of three years’ post-qualifying experience in direct employment of an English local authority in children’s services. Periods of statutory leave taken as part of continuous employment count towards post-qualifying experience and the three years can be gained through several periods of employment. Implementation: 31 October 2024 for all contracts to supply new agency staff, unless prevented by existing contractual obligations, and by 1 October 2025 for all contracts for agency assignments.
- Councils should provide a detailed practice-based reference, using a standard national template, for all agency social workers they engage and require at least two such references the same before taking on a locum. Implementation: 31 October 2024 for all contracts to supply new agency staff, unless prevented by existing contractual obligations, and by 1 October 2025 for all contracts for agency assignments.
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Hampshire County Council 
Lincolnshire County Council 
Norfolk County Council 
Northamptonshire Children’s Trust 
South Gloucestershire Council 
Wiltshire Council 
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Is this also applying to adult agency posts?
Hi Cheryl,
Thanks for that – no this policy is just for local authority children’s services.
Cheers,
Mithran
How does the 4 week notice period work? If an agency worker has to give 4 weeks notice, does the LA have to give an agency worker at least 4 weeks notice to match it. I’m not an agency worker but I’m not sure this is fair otherwise. I understand why they are wanting to implement this but I think there’s potential for this to cause issues too. We are currently 3 staff members down on our team and we need to get workers in quickly to manage case loads – if agency workers are having to give long periods of notice this is going to impact.
I do understand the need for stable social workers for children but that issue is not soley because of agency workers, that is a wider issue around the workload, stress, etc.
I don’t agree with the notice periods for agency workers matching permanent staff.