Local authority children’s services departments across Yorkshire & the Humber say they are seeing significant improvements since adopting the Department for Education’s (DfE) agency rules statutory guidance and introducing price caps, nine months ahead of schedule.
The statutory guidance, which came into effect on 31 October 2024 with a transition period until 1 October 2025, includes capping agency pay rates, longer notice requirements, and a restriction on hiring workers who have recently left an agency post in the same region. By tightening these arrangements, the DfE aims to reduce churn in the workforce and create more consistency for staff, as well as secure better outcomes for children and families.
In Yorkshire & the Humber, industry leaders saw the DfE’s overhaul of the agency workforce as an opportunity to get ahead of the new statutory guidance whilst addressing any teething problems before the national deadline came into force. In preparation for this, engagement work with agency workers and providers began in September 2024 before authorities adopted the DfE statutory guidance in January 2025, with a transition period of three months on price caps. As a result, the region has already seen a dramatic reduction in the number of full-time equivalent agency workers; down from 512 in September 2024, to 306 by the end of June 2025. Regional leaders say that feedback from their counterparts in other parts of the country, who have also introduced similar changes ahead of time, indicates that they too are seeing positive results as the changes take effect; a trend which they believe will become increasingly apparent in the coming months.
The decision to adopt the DfE statutory guidance in January formed part of a regional Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which included a commitment from the 15 local authorities to fully comply with each of the DfE’s guidelines as “musts” rather than “shoulds”. The MoU also includes a commitment to working collaboratively, sharing information and overseeing compliance through a regional governance group.
Yorkshire & the Humber’s lead Director for workforce and Rotherham’s Director of Children’s Services (DCS), Nicola Curley, reflects on what the MoU has meant for the region, and why the decision to “go early” on the DfE’s statutory guidance was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Nicola explains: “The announcement of a national shake-up of the agency workforce provided an opportunity to pursue an agenda that had been on the table regionally for some time, and to refresh and grip what was an incredibly challenging problem for us all. We wanted to take advantage of the new statutory guidance, but also really push forward with what we wanted to do as a region anyway, and what we thought would be of most benefit to everyone.” She adds: “We recognised that this wasn't going to be a “snap your fingers, it’ll be perfect on day one” scenario. We wanted to give ourselves enough time to get things in place”.
Nicola says one of the biggest early hurdles in implementing the changes was in accommodating the variations between partner authorities, which included the differing agency worker proportions and pay rates. So in the interests of creating a fair process, there was a concerted effort in supporting authorities facing the biggest challenges in turning things around and agreeing that there would have to be a small number of exceptions in the early days.
Nicola credits buy-in at DCS level, as well as a task and finish group led by Assistant Directors in helping to successfully implement the changes, all of which she says laid the groundwork for an arrangement that suited everyone. Nicola is also keen to stress that, far from removing the role of agency workers, they would in reality, always have a critical role in ensuring that talented practitioners are on hand at short notice. For Nicola, the major benefit of the DfE statutory guidance and regional MoU is that it provides local authorities with more options to decide when the use of agency workers is the best solution, rather than having a scenario where the use of temporary contracts spirals out of control.
She says: “I don't think anybody's suggesting that we would never use agency staff or that we don't see a value in agency staff. I think the issue for us as a region is that we want choices. To go from 512 full time equivalent agency workers down to 306 in just nine months is an incredibly significant reduction. It’s not that we don’t have those 206 jobs any more; what we've been able to do is convert agency staff to permanent staff and enhance our permanent recruitment. I think we’ve really turned the tide here in Yorkshire & the Humber and we’re really pleased about that.” Read Nicola’s full story here
For some of the region’s authorities facing the biggest challenges, the national DfE statutory guidance and regional MoU have also yielded some of the most significant improvements. This includes North East Lincolnshire, which had been rated inadequate in 2021, and by 2023, had a workforce made up of 75% agency workers.
Since taking up the role as Director of Children’s Services at the authority 20 months ago, Ann-Marie Matson has described how they have since overcome some of these challenges, including how in less than two years they’ve reduced the number of roles filled by agency workers from 74, down to just 14. They also recently secured a “Good” Ofsted rating, all of which Ann-Marie says would have been far harder to achieve without a consistent regional approach and the guarantee that neighbouring authorities would support their efforts.
In trying to transition away from an agency-reliant workforce, North East Lincolnshire still had to provide enough capacity to keep the service running day-to-day. Ordinarily, the added pressure of competing with neighbouring authorities willing to offer higher agency rates would have proved a barrier, but Ann-Marie says that with the weight of the national guidance behind the MoU, Yorkshire & Humber has been able to present a united regional front.
The additional stability in the workforce has, in turn, enabled North East Lincolnshire to pursue an improved workforce development strategy. By allowing more time for professional relationships to build, they have found it much easier to plan around the development needs of their permanent workforce. Practitioners on the ground are already seeing the effect of a more stable workforce, which is helping to create the conditions for positive change in children's lives. Crucially, feedback from children and families themselves has also been positive, with one child recently telling one Inspector: “Things are better”.
Reflecting on the process of turning these numbers around, Ann-Marie felt the most significant challenge was in holding firm in the face of pressure, saying: “On the one hand, you absolutely need that social work capacity and the consequences of not having it are indescribable. But on the other, one of the strengths was as a region we agreed we would do this, and we have stuck with it. It's taken all 15 local authorities to really commit to that at the highest level and be obsessed with it, care about it and make it our daily business. There are some incredible agency social workers out there. They are great, but actually we want those people in permanent positions, building lasting relationships and trust with our children and families.” Read Ann-Marie’s full story here
For the Executive Director, Social Care and Practice at Bradford Children & Families Trust, Ruth Terry, the announcement of the DfE’s new agency rules helped to focus the region towards a similar goal. However, overseeing a large-scale transition from over 370 agency roles in April 2023 to a more permanent workforce, along with what was then, the presence of around 18 agency-managed teams with different terms and pay, posed a range of challenges.
But with support from partner authorities and a proactive approach to engaging with agency colleagues, Bradford has started to see positive results. Ruth explains: “I think there's always a little bit of anxiety and kind of concern about how something like this will affect your own organisation or your own local authority. But ultimately, I just 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 doing so, the leadership team in Bradford was able to find common ground with their agency providers, who agreed the current level of temporary roles was unsustainable.
Ruth says: “We had to recognise that a lot our agency workers had actually been in Bradford 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..”
While recognising that there is still some way to go in terms of fully stabilising the workforce at the Trust, Ruth says there have been improvements in the quality of their services and a more cohesive workplace culture, saying: “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. People are here to stay, they know their colleagues aren’t just going to leave, and they’re feeling really positive about that. The DfE changes were the catalyst in some ways, I really felt the commitment from everybody to get it right.” Read Ruth’s full story here