Summary of Child and Family Social Workers: Agency Rules

The new statutory guidance from the UK government, a significant development, outlines rules for the use of agency child and family social workers by local authorities, effective October 31, 2024. The focus is on reducing agency social workers' overreliance on and costs, ensuring stability, quality, and sustainability in the workforce, and improving child and family outcomes.

Key actions:

1. Comply with Price Caps: Must work within regional agreements for agency social workers on price caps.
2. Adopt New Contracts: Any contracts for supplying social workers should be aligned with the new statutory guidance by October 31, 2024, and fully compliant by October 1, 2025.
3. Implement Reference and Notice Period Requirements: Ensure that all workers provided to local authorities have detailed practice-based references and adhere to the notice period requirements (e.g., Ensuring a four-week notice period and restricting instructing former staff to three months). Circumstances where that isn’t applicable:

-        is moving to a permanent role

-        has been made redundant from a permanent role

-        is seeking an agency assignment in a different region from their previous employment

-        has left a permanent role during their probationary period

1. Ensure 3 Years’ PQE for Social Workers: Must only supply agency social workers with at least three years’ post-qualifying experience (PQE) in a child and family social work context.
2. Quarterly Reporting: This must be prepared for local authorities to request quarterly data on the use and cost of social workers supplied, an essential aspect of ensuring transparency and accountability.
3. Limit Movement of Staff: Should refrain from engaging workers who have left a substantive role within the same local authority region within the last three months.

From 31 October 2024, local authorities must comply with agency rules for all new contracts involving agency child and family social workers, except where existing contracts prevent rule implementation. Authorities should collaborate with supply chains to ensure compliance.

Contracts predating the guidance should support compliance where possible, but authorities are not required to alter or terminate them solely for this purpose. By 1 October 2025, full implementation of the agency rules is expected for all contracts, potentially involving contract revisions or terminations to align with the guidance.

You can read the full report here.