One Year On: Have Agency Restrictions Helped or Hurt Children's Services?

Over the last 12 months, few topics have generated more discussion across children's social care than the restrictions introduced around agency social workers.

The intentions behind the reforms were clear.

Improve stability. Reduce workforce churn. Strengthen permanent teams. Ensure public money is being spent effectively.

All worthwhile ambitions.

But one year on, I find myself asking a different question:

Have the reforms strengthened children's services, or have they unintentionally created new workforce challenges?

The answer, in my view, sits somewhere in the middle.

The Reforms Were Always About More Than Cost

Too often, conversations around agency workers focus solely on cost.

But the reality is that the reforms were driven by a desire to improve outcomes for children and families.

Stable relationships matter.

Consistency matters.

Children shouldn't have to repeatedly tell their story to different social workers because services are struggling with workforce turnover.

In many respects, the reforms have helped push local authorities towards longer-term workforce planning rather than simply filling vacancies as they arise.

That's a positive step forward.

The Biggest Impact? The PQE Requirement

While much of the debate focuses on agency usage itself, I would argue the most significant change has been the requirement around post-qualifying experience (PQE).

The intention is understandable.

Children's social work is complex. It makes sense that agency practitioners should have a strong foundation of frontline experience before moving into locum positions.

The policy is designed to ensure social workers gain valuable experience within permanent local authority settings before entering the agency market.

Initially, that brought a number of benefits.

It encouraged greater workforce stability and helped strengthen pathways for newly qualified social workers.

But over time, a more difficult question has emerged.

Has the sector unintentionally narrowed its own talent pool?

Are We Losing Experienced Social Workers?

This is where I believe the conversation needs to become more balanced.

The challenge isn't simply about newly qualified social workers.

The bigger issue is whether some experienced practitioners are now finding it harder to support local authorities facing significant workforce pressures.

Social work careers are rarely linear.

Some practitioners have extensive experience gained through different routes, regions or sectors. Others have stepped away from local authority practice and later wish to return.

Yet workforce policies don't always reflect the complexity of real careers.

At a time when many authorities continue to face recruitment challenges, we should be asking ourselves:

Are we making the most of experienced practitioners who still have valuable expertise to offer?

And perhaps more importantly:

Have some social workers simply chosen to leave children's services altogether because the opportunities available to them have become more restricted?

Workforce Quality and Workforce Capacity Are Not Opposites

Sometimes the debate feels unnecessarily polarised.

Agency versus permanent.

Quality versus flexibility.

Standards versus workforce capacity.

The reality is far more nuanced.

Children's services need high standards.

They also need enough experienced people to safely deliver services.

Both things can be true at the same time.

I've spoken to many leaders across social care who fully support the intentions behind the reforms but are still concerned about ongoing workforce shortages.

That's because restrictions alone don't create social workers.

They don't improve retention.

They don't reduce workload pressures.

And they don't automatically solve recruitment challenges.

What Should Success Actually Look Like?

Perhaps the biggest challenge is how we measure success.

If agency numbers reduce, is that enough?

I'm not convinced.

For me, success looks like:

• Stable teams
• Improved retention
• Manageable caseloads
• Better outcomes for children and families
• A healthy pipeline of future social workers
• Access to experienced practitioners when services need additional support

Agency usage is only one part of that picture.

The real test is whether children's services are stronger today than they were a year ago.

My Final Thought

One year on, I don't believe the reforms have been a failure.

Far from it.

They've encouraged important conversations about workforce sustainability, standards and stability.

But I also don't think we should assume every consequence has been positive.

The sector must continue to examine whether some aspects of the reforms, particularly around PQE requirements, are having unintended consequences on workforce capacity.

Because ultimately, this isn't about agency workers or permanent workers.

It's about ensuring children and families have access to skilled, experienced professionals when they need them most. And if experienced social workers are finding themselves unable or unwilling to support services facing significant workforce pressures, then that's a conversation the sector can't afford to ignore.