GovWire

This guidance is for:

• chief finance officers (CFO) or Section 151 officers, and monitoring officers
• childrens trusts chief executives
• councillors, including leaders of councils and lead members for childrens services
• directors of childrens services
• heads of HR, commissioning, commercial, contracts or procurement
• heads of service and service managers
• local authority chief executives
• social workers and practice supervisors in childrens social care

This guidance is written for those who work in and with local authority childrens social care. It contains information that may also be useful to those, like recruitment businesses, who supply child and family social workers to local authorities.

It applies to:

• all local authorities in England
• alternative delivery models for childrens social care (where the delivery of childrens services is outsourced to a trust or not-for-profit organisation that is separate from, but accountable to, the local authority)
• partnership based models(where a single leadership team oversees delivery of childrens services across two or more local authorities)

Statutory guidance is issued by law. The data collection section of this guidance is a legal requirement for local authorities. The rest of this statutory guidance should be complied with unless exceptional circumstances arise.

Agency rules

This is statutory guidance from the Department for Education (DfE). This means that all local authorities should comply with it when using agency child and family social workers to carry out duties in their childrens services departments, unless exceptional circumstances arise.

Creating the right conditions to allow all social workers to thrive and do the best social work they can relies on a stable, effective, and supported workforce. This guidance describes a set of rules that collectively set out what local authorities should do when using agency child and family social workers.

Further details on the data collection and price caps rules can be found in the data and price caps operational guidance.

Standard reference template

Using the standard reference template will facilitate a system that supports local authorities to effectively manage performance and recruitment across the agency workforce.

The standard reference template is based on the social work professional standards in England. The professional standards are the threshold standards necessary for safe and effective practice set out by Social Work England outlining what every social worker must know, understand, and be able to do after qualifying. Local authorities should ensure that both sections of the template are completed.

DfE commissioned Research in Practice (RiP) to produce the standard reference template tool alongside wider resources to support local authorities in engaging agency child and family social workers effectively and implementing the agency rules statutory guidance.

Support and resources

DfE funded Research in Practice (RiP) to develop resources to support the implementation of the agency rules statutory guidance. Developed in collaboration with Essex County Council and Kings College London, and in consultation with local government and the recruitment sector, these resources are intended to complement the agency rules statutory guidance.

The resources are available on the support for social workers platform.