CYP Now - Ban use of social work agencies to prevent ‘profiteering’, ADCS president urges

The president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has called on government to “regulate or preferably ban” social work agencies in a bid to “save millions from the public purse immediately”.

Steve Crocker is president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services. Picture: ADCS

“Private social work agencies are contacting our social workers, hoovering them up and then selling them back to us at twice the cost,” Steve Crocker told the ADCS annual conference on Thursday

He shared particular concerns over an “increasing” practice of agencies only supplying social workers to local authorities as part of a team.

Crocker, who is director of children’s services in Hampshire and the Isle of White, said “If I have one of our workers in Andover on maternity leave, that’s the sort of example where I’d use an agency worker to cover that for that time.

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