Care Review response: Role of social worker agencies to be curtailed

The proposal to outlaw the employment of whole teams is one of several new measures put forward by ministers to reduce reliance on temporary staff, the amount councils are spending on agency workers and create greater parity in levels of pay between temporary and employed practitioners.

The measures – which also include a cap on agency workers’ pay rates, introduction of national agency pay scales and requiring a minimum of five years’ post qualifying experience before working as a freelance – are set out in a consultation document published today (2 February) alongside the government’s Care Review response. 

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The Department for Education consultation document highlights concerns from local authorities that the “emerging model of managed service project teams delivered by agencies” was contributing to rising agency costs and a reduction in the quality and stability of the workforce.

It cites evidence from a CYP Now investigation which showed the number of children’s services departments that used whole agency social work teams had doubled between 2020/21 and 2021/22, with costs almost tripling over the same period. 

These teams typically comprise six or seven social workers alongside an assistant and team manager, contracted to deliver specific project outcomes or “solutions”. Some have capped caseloads that, the DfE says, puts greater pressure on the employed workforce, who often do not, and require a commitment from the authority to sign up to additional support services, such as administration.

The DfE says these teams are increasingly being used not to deliver “projects” but on core statutory social work, adding that while an authority may engage multiple social workers from the same agency, “each should contract individually to ensure clear accountability is maintained”.

The Care Review's final report, published in May 2022, highlighted the increasing amount spent by councils on agency staff and recommended the introduction of new national rules reduce costs and the reliance on them.

To address this the government proposes introducing a system for setting national agency pay rates that are more in line with salaries for employed staff and which incorporate factors including holiday pay, national insurance contributions and agency fee. There would be new restrictions on how agencies advertise roles and they would not be allowed to offer bonuses of any description. The consultation also asks whether there should be different price caps across regions.  

Speaking to CYP Now ahead of today’s announcements, children’s minister Claire Coutinho said: “We've seen a real ballooning of agency workers and then you get a lot of churn - for social workers, who aren't agency workers it can put extra stress on them. We’ll be looking at consulting on the difference between the pay scales on, minimum notice periods, and things like that to see how we could crackdown on that as well.

“It is a massive issue and we're starting to see agencies become more aggressive with things like pricing which is causing real instability.”

The consultation on the proposals closes in May with the government’s response due to be published in September. Ministers propose introducing the new measures from April 2024.  

While welcoming the proposals, Steve Crocker, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said the timescales were too long and action was needed now.

“We have been urgently calling for coordinated, national action to help manage this market so that it works for local authorities and, crucially, children and young people,” he said

“ADCS welcomes this consultation on tackling the rising costs of agency social workers and improving quality assurance. It includes a range of sensible proposals but the timeline for implementation is too long, we cannot wait 15 months for change and urge government to progress the changes even more quickly.

“Local authorities are facing real recruitment and retention challenges now, particularly amongst our social workers which, in the short term, is leading to an increasing reliance upon agency staff to help us meet the growing levels of need we are seeing across our communities. At the same time, we are seeing increasingly aggressive recruitment tactics being employed by agencies to attract our staff and the costs of buying back their services spiralling.

“Our children and young people tell us that they benefit from having a consistent worker who knows them and their story. The significant churn in the workforce and the increasingly short-term nature of agency social work placements makes this harder to achieve. We have also seen a rise in the use of ‘project teams’ of workers which can often be the only option made available to us by agencies, even when only one or two social workers are needed.”