Transparency data

Children's social work workforce: attrition, caseload and agency workforce

Statistics on child and family social workers who left local authority employment, agency social workers and social workers’ caseloads.

Applies to England

Documents

Children's social work workforce: attrition, caseload, and agency workforce

Details

This release provides additional analysis of the children’s social work workforce data which is collected by the Department for Education from local authorities in an annual census. It includes new analysis on social workers who leave a post in local authority children’s social work. Estimates are provided for 2 years, starting from 1 October 2019.

This release also includes new analysis on the numbers of cases held by social workers on 30 September 2021, and on the profile of agency social workers on 30 September 2021.

Both years of data may be affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Due to the pandemic, and because there’s only 2 years of data in the release, longer term trends should not be drawn from the data.

Published 23 May 2022