The practice of offering social workers welcome payments of up to £8,000 to take on roles in children’s services departments – often in high-pressure teams such as family assessment and safeguarding – is becoming increasingly commonplace as councils try to compete with higher pay rates offered by agencies and ensure they recruit and retain sufficient staff during the year-long squeeze on living standards.
Latest Department for Education figures, published in February, show that the number of children and family social worker vacancies in 2022 was 7,900, up more than a fifth on the previous year’s figures and the highest rate since 2017.
There were fewer children and family social worker starters than leavers in 2022 for the first time since 2017 and on 31 September last year there were 6,800 agency social workers – the highest number of temporary practitioners in post since government recording of such data began five years ago.
The figures prompted a rallying cry from the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), which warns that “without urgent action we are risking highly motivated and experienced social workers leaving the profession, as well as risking the loss of newly qualified social workers early in their careers as they are not being supported enough to stay in the sector.”
Growing trend
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent to all 151 top tier local authorities by CYP Now found that, of the 95 councils that responded, almost one third now offer a recruitment payment – known as “golden hellos” – of at least £1,000 to attract staff, with 45 per cent introducing them in the last three years.
Last year, Brighter Futures for Children (BFfC), which runs children’s services in Reading, introduced a lump-sum welcome payment of £5,000 to case-holding social workers within its together for families service, covering family intervention and assessments, after six months of “continuous service” and the successful completion of a probationary period. The organisation highlights that consultant practitioners, social work managers or those in their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) are not eligible for the payment.
Also last year, Sefton Council introduced a £3,000 one-off incentive to “all new employees who are successful in their application for permanent social worker vacancies in all teams across children’s social care”.
Of the 29 local authorities in England which said they offer welcome payments 13 have introduced them since 2020.
Others introduced payments much earlier, with Oxfordshire doing so in 2003.
John Pearce, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and director of children’s services at Durham County Council, says the failure to ensure public sector wages increased with inflation over decades is a factor behind the increased use of incentive payments.
“Like all other professionals, social workers need to be remunerated at an appropriate level for the job,” he says. “You can’t get away from the fact that public sector wages, over the last 30 years, have taken a significant hit in terms of keeping pace with inflation and the cost of living,” he explains.
Cost of living
However, some local authorities say a one-off payment is no longer enough to attract social workers with some offering payments linked to length of service to retain experienced staff (see below). In total, 15 councils that responded to the FOI offer retention payments, 13 of which also offer golden hellos.
One of these, West Berkshire Council, last month introduced a new approach that pays £3,000 after one year in service, with a further £5,000 paid over the following two years – the highest amount of any local authority that responded to CYP Now’s FOI request – for social workers in teams including contact and assessment and family safeguarding (see Analysis). The council has also introduced a market supplement of £6,000 for all children’s social workers.
Dave Wraight, acting head of children and families services at West Berkshire Council, says this was introduced to ensure social workers in the area are remunerated in line with those working for neighbouring local authorities.
“We recognised that our pay was lower than those around us and therefore, we have added on a market supplement of £6,000 so that the rate of pay is then aligned. Hopefully, this means we won’t lose social workers who are looking for ways to make ends meet and can do a similar role in a neighbouring authority for higher pay,” he adds.
Competing with agencies
Wraight also acknowledges that the local authority’s recruitment and retention package was introduced in 2015 and changed this year in response to the high use of agency workers at the council.
“One of the trends that has been emerging is that some agency workers are around for quite a long time in West Berkshire,” he explains. “By offering this payment and wage increase, we want to try and make the decision to move to becoming a permanent member of staff as easy and simple as possible.
“We know the benefits for children and families of having stability and longevity of relationship with social workers is enormous, hence having a permanent workforce of social workers is a high priority.”
Lara Patel, BFfC’s executive director of children’s services for Reading, adds: “We’d far rather use our limited budget to reward our permanent social workers than spend this money – and more – on recruitment fees to agencies and on higher, hourly rates for temporary workers who can’t offer our children the stability we’ve promised them.
“We put together a package which we think will help encourage great social workers to join us and to stay with us.”
BASW confirms that it has seen a growth in financial incentives offered in areas where local authorities are “competing with agencies” to recruit staff.
“We are seeing some agencies charging very high rates to councils, where not all of it goes to the social worker, but they are attracting some staff due to higher pay and lower caseloads,” a spokesperson says.
Wraight argues that welcome payments, while important, are part of a wider employment package to attract permanent social workers.
“We wanted to boost the attractiveness of working permanently for us and part of that’s about pay, but actually it is a lot more about other benefits like making sure that we provide really good quality management and supervision, generous annual leave and that we ensure that our council is a really positive place to work – that’s probably even more important than pay,” he adds.
Measuring success
In West Berkshire, data tools are used to measure staff turnover and progression. Wraight notes that since introducing the incentive payments “most people who leave are leaving us for some sort of career progression” but admits “we’ve had challenges in terms of some people leaving to become agency workers”.
BFfC’s Patel adds that in Reading “before the scheme was introduced, we already appeared to be bucking the trend in relation to social worker recruitment”.
“We’ve had other local authorities approach us to ask us what we’re doing, because we are attracting new employees and keeping those we already have.
“We’re hoping this [new] scheme will put us in an even stronger position,” she says.
The rise in offering incentive payments to attract social workers comes alongside government plans to curtail the use of agency staff by local authorities in response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care through a cap on agency workers’ pay rates, the introduction of national agency pay scales and a requirement of a minimum of five years’ post-qualifying experience before working as a freelance.
While many argue that remuneration of social workers is important, social work leaders agree that “golden hellos” must come alongside a wider package of measures to attract staff who intend to stick with one local authority for the long haul.
Recruitment packages key in hard-to-reach areas
A survey of agency social workers by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation finds that 73 per cent of those asked say they would avoid seeking roles in hard-to-reach areas.
Norfolk County Council offers a £12,000 “loyalty” payment and £2,000 “welcome” payment to experienced members of its family assessment and safeguarding team and looked-after children team in a bid to tackle this issue.
Other benefits offered by the council include a relocation package of up to £10,000.
The British Association of Social Workers says such high-value offers are becoming “more commonplace, particularly in rural areas” which are more likely to have to use agency staff.
Jonathan Rawlings, senior policy manager at the County Councils Network, adds that while Norfolk’s relocation package is “the biggest” he’s seen, “coastal areas and those which are very remote are turning to these sorts of incentives to make relocation more attractive to people who might not ordinarily be able to afford it”.
- View CYP Now's data from its FOI request here.
