The Department for Education’s (DfE) statutory guidance on agency social work came into effect on 31 October 2024 before becoming a legal requirement from 1 October 2025.The changes include the introduction of price caps, minimum notice periods, and restrictions on councils hiring agency staff who have recently left a permanent role within the same region. These measures are designed to strengthen stability in the workforce, with the long-term aim of creating the conditions for more stable relationships and better outcomes for both practitioners and the children and young people they support.
In response, Yorkshire & the Humber’s 15 authorities opted into a regional Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This included adopting the DfE’s guidance and fully applying each of the guidelines as “musts” rather than “shoulds”, including introducing price caps ten months ahead of schedule. In doing so, each authority also agreed to support one another in implementing the guidance by sharing data and establishing a regional governance group in order to learn from each other and oversee compliance. The initial results and feedback indicate that these changes are already having a positive impact across the region.
Overseeing a large-scale transition from a workforce with a high rate of agency roles to a more permanent workforce poses a range of challenges. As the Executive Director of Social Care and Practice at Bradford Children & Families Trust, Ruth Terry has played an important part in pulling the MoU together behind the scenes at a regional level, as well as in working out how to approach the transition within the Trust. We found out how support from partner authorities and a proactive approach to engaging with agency colleagues has helped Bradford to see positive results.
When Ruth first took up her post with the Trust, the need to stabilise their workforce, was a key priority:
“As a new leadership team, when we came into the Trust we had a really clear vision that we were going to be a beacon of best practice in the region. To do that, one of our key priorities was developing a permanent and stable workforce. When the Trust went live, we had over 370 agency social workers, but out of that, I think the most challenging area was that we had about 18 managed teams. So, changing that was something that we knew we had to work towards.”
The announcement of the new agency rules helped to focus the region towards a similar goal. With the Yorkshire & Humber region choosing to introduce the MoU earlier than the national statutory guidance, Bradford was in a particularly challenging starting position due to the size of their existing agency workforce. Added to this was the presence of agency-managed teams working under different terms and pay. However, the overall mood among the leadership team in Bradford was that regional cooperation would help them to sustain the long-term effort needed to reach their workforce goal.
“I think there's always a little bit of anxiety and concern about how something like this will affect your own organisation or your own local authority. But ultimately, I thought it was a really positive move for us as a region. I could see that it would be beneficial to work together on it as a region and have some clarity, rules and boundaries.”
The potential turnover involved in converting the existing agency roles to permanent meant the leadership team had to find ways to maintain continuity. For Ruth, the solution was in focusing on the people rather than the roles, making sure agency workers knew their work to date was valued, and that they would be welcome to continue on a permanent basis. In many cases, agency practitioners in Bradford had been with the service for extended periods, so the leadership team was keen to preserve the relationships they had built up and recognise their loyalty to the community and colleagues.
“We had to recognise that a lot of our agency workers had actually been in Bradford for a long time. These were some really good social workers as well, it wasn't that they were people we didn't want to work with. They were colleagues who were really committed to Bradford. So our priority was encouraging them to become permanent”
Reflecting on the initial period of change, Ruth feels that clear communication and genuine two-way engagement have been crucial in getting things right and ensuring agencies and agency workers were included in the process. The leadership team in Bradford were able to find common ground with their agency providers, who agreed the current level of temporary roles was unsustainable:
“The critical partners in this were our agency workers. We had those ongoing conversations with them about how critical they are to our journey, but also explaining that there were going to be rules and boundaries that we’d have to stick to. I had regular meetings with the agency providers themselves, talking to them about our vision and how that connects with theirs. We actually found that we were all on the same page, and they didn't want us to have that many agency staff. They recognised that that wasn't how an organisation should operate.’
Along with converting existing agency staff to permanent roles, the other pillar of the Trust’s efforts to stabilise their workforce has been through an increased use of a “grow your own” approach. Bradford has adopted the academy model, and is planning to build capacity further to ensure a pipeline of emerging talent to phase out temporary roles:
“We have one hundred newly qualified social workers in Bradford this year. They are absolutely brilliant. Our newly qualified social workers will be supported through our academy before they start to work with families in their own right, enabling us to reduce the need for temporary social work staff further.”
Ruth was also keen to highlight the importance of regional solidarity in sticking to the MoU agreement. In the past, similar agreements had run into trouble when some of the authorities taking part found themselves struggling to fill roles, fuelling competition for agency staff. However, having the national guidance as the backbone of a regional agreement helped to ensure buy-in from each authority.
“I can't speak for others, but it did feel like everybody was more able to galvanise themselves around something very specific. We've had an MoU before, but this time it just felt different. The DfE changes were the catalyst in some ways, I really felt the commitment from everybody to get it right. We weren't the only organisation in the region with those challenges, but once everybody got on board, it just felt like the commitment was there from senior leaders across the region.”
While recognising that there was still a way to go in terms of fully stabilising the workforce at the Trust, there are signs that the progress already made is improving the quality of the service for children and young people, and helping to create a more positive and cohesive workplace culture.
“We get a lot of feedback from families saying they're seeing that kind of stability now. They're having the same social workers for much longer. They're building relationships. We're absolutely getting some positive feedback. Most people are here to stay, they know their colleagues aren’t just going to leave, and they’re feeling really positive about that. There’s always more to do, but we’re confident that we are on the right path and will continue to build on the successes we’ve seen to date”