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Social Workers: Agency Workers

Question for Department for Education

UIN 64318, tabled on 17 February 2017

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of memoranda of understanding and regional agreements in managing the costs of agency social workers.

Answered on

27 February 2017

The Department for Education recognises the costs associated with the use of agency social workers. The department welcomes the efforts made by local authorities through regional memoranda of understanding to improve the deployment, and manage the costs, of agency social workers. The department has not conducted an assessment of their effectiveness or of the effect on local authority expenditure. Similarly, the department has not carried out an assessment of a national cap on agency social worker fees.