Agency children's social workers by council, England

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• 0.0% to 7.7%
• 7.7% to 11.1%
• 11.1% to 16.6%
• 16.6% to 24.8%
• 24.8% to 100%

Boundaries: Council boundaries, May 2026, from the geography spine. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

Source and licence

Publisher

Department for Education

Check it yourself

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-s-social-work-workforce

Licence

Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Retrieved

6 November 2026, 06:54 UTC

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Verification

! Latest check failed – showing figures verified against source 6 November 2026, 06:57 UTC Run at 10 November 2026, 11:32 UTC; the latest check failed, so these are the figures that matched the source in full at 6 November 2026, 06:57 UTC; they stand for up to 14 days while the failure is put right.

Notes

• “Child and family social workers are social workers registered with Social Work England (SWE) working in a local authority in a children’s services department or, if working in an authority where the services are joined up, a social worker that works primarily on children and families work. Child and family social workers are employed and paid directly by the local authority.” (the DfE's methodology) “Agency workers are child and family social workers not directly paid by the local authority. These may be social workers who are paid by an agency rather than the local authority or who are self-employed.” (the DfE's methodology)
• “The agency worker rate is calculated as the number of agency child and family social workers in post at 30 September divided by the sum of the number of agency child and family social workers in post at 30 September and the number of child and family social workers in post at 30 September. This is calculated for both FTE and headcount.” (the DfE's methodology)
• “FTEs are calculated by aggregating the total number of hours that child and family social workers are contracted to work and dividing by the standard hours for their grade.” (the DfE's methodology)
• “Figures for full-time equivalents (FTEs), rates, percentages, caseload and working days have been rounded to one decimal place. Therefore component parts may not sum to totals if applicable.” (the DfE's data guidance).
• The Isles of Scilly had no child and family social workers of its own in post at 30 September 2025 or 2024 (none, full-time equivalent or by headcount), so by the rule above its agency workers were all its child and family social workers in post: the Department for Education gives its agency rate as 100% in both years.
• In 2024 for Birmingham: “After the 2024 collection had closed, Birmingham local authority informed the Department that there were data quality issues with the figures they reported in the collection. Excluded from the sickness absence figures, sickness absence rates, agency worker rates, agency workers covering vacancies rates and vacancy agency cover rates (Birmingham has also been excluded from the denominator of these rates). 2024 data for Birmingham has been provided as ‘u’ in the underlying data for these measures to indicate low reliability.” (the DfE's methodology) For Kensington and Chelsea: “Analysis during the 2025 publication indicated that the reported numbers of FTE agency workers and FTE agency workers covering vacancies for 2024 were incorrect and significant undercounts of the true figures. Included in the national/regional figures and rates for FTE agency workers and FTE agency workers covering vacancies. FTE agency rates, FTE agency workers covering vacancies rate and FTE vacancy agency cover rate presented as ‘x’ in the underlying data at local authority level to indicate not available.” (the DfE's methodology) For Liverpool: “During the 2025 collection, Liverpool local authority informed DfE that the data they had submitted as part of the 2024 census for agency workers was incorrect and an undercount of the true number. Caution should therefore be taken when interpreting this figure.” (the DfE's methodology)
• Two pairs of councils make one return: “Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames submit a joint census for each year through Achieving for Children, a social enterprise company created by the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames to provide their children’s services. As a result of this arrangement their data cannot be broken down to an individual local authority level and is instead reported together against ‘Kingston upon Thames / Richmond upon Thames’.” (the DfE's methodology) “In April 2021, Northamptonshire local authority was replaced with two new unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. Since 2021, they have submitted a joint census return and data for both unitary authorities is reported against ‘North Northamptonshire / West Northamptonshire’ in this statistics publication.” (the DfE's methodology) Their joint figures are in the DfE's file and in its regional and national totals; the hub shows the four councils as reported jointly rather than divide the figure.
• “Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster were unable to provide data following a cyberattack in November 2025, which had a significant impact on their information management systems. Because of this, in data sets 1 to 3, figures for these local authorities are not available (indicated by ‘x’), and for data sets 1 to 4 at national and regional level, figures from the previous year were used as best estimates to replace this year’s missing data for these local authorities to calculate totals for England, London, and Inner London.” (the DfE's methodology) The hub shows those two councils' 2025 figures as not available; London's, Inner London's and England's 2025 figures are the DfE's, with those estimates in them.
• “In particular, comparisons with earlier years should be made with a degree of caution, as any changes may in part be as a result of improvements in data quality.” (the DfE's methodology)
• Barnsley and Sheffield are given under their new codes in 2025 and their codes from before 1 April 2025 in 2024, as the Department for Education gives them.
• The Department for Education publishes these as official statistics: “These statistics have been published as official statistics since the 2019 release, whereas previously they were classified as experimental statistics (now referred to as ‘Official Statistics in Development’).” (the DfE's methodology) Its data is released under the Open Government Licence v3.0, as its data guidance says.