21.07.14
Councils plan to launch their own social worker agency
Three councils are planning to form a recruitment agency to help deliver their children’s social care services through the provision of locum social workers, it is reported.
Northamptonshire and two other councils are examining the legal issues that would arise from creating the agency, but officers are hopeful that the innovative plans will be given the go-ahead.
Paul Blantern, chief executive of Northamptonshire Council, told Community Care that the move was a response to the growing numbers of social workers moving into agency work.
He hoped that by having a council-run agency, which offers additional incentives, more social workers may move away from using other recruitment agencies – to which the local authorities have to pay 20% fees.
“We thought about setting up our own agency where, in essence, we are not charging ourselves the 20% fee but we would still treat people who want to work in an agency workforce in the same way,” Blantern told Community Care. “Also, for example, if you come in via ours [recruitment agency] it might be that we offer training, but if you come in through an external agency we might not provide training because we are going to use you for a much shorter term because we’re paying an extra 20%.”
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