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Reporting year 2021
Children's social work workforce: attrition, caseload, and agency workforce
Data guidance
Published
Description
This document covers analysis and data from the attrition, caseload, and agency workforce publication 2021.
This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License and is intended to meet at least three stars for Open Data.
The methodology should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, coverage and quality, as well as explaining the methods used to produce the data
Coverage
The Children’s social work workforce census covers all local authorities in England and all children and family social workers employed by those local authorities.
Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames submit a joint return each year, and the numbers are reported against Kingston upon Thames. This arrangement has no impact on regional and national totals.
Northamptonshire local authority was replaced with two new unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire, in April 2021. Data for both unitary authorities is reported against North Northamptonshire in this publication.
File formats and conventions
Data and metadata are provided in csv format
Where any number is shown as zero (0), the original figure submitted was zero. x indicates that data is not available. This may be because a local authority was unable to return a particular data item in the census, or data was not available because of concerns regarding quality. z indicates data is not applicable.
Rounding
Figures for full-time equivalents (FTEs), rates and percentages have been rounded to one decimal place.
Data files
All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.
Additional attrition estimates
Filename
further_attrition_estimates_2021.csv
Geographic levels
National
Time period
2021
Content
Additional attrition estimates are calculated with sub-groups of the main data, estimating attrition with leavers from the first six months of the collection period (October ‘20 and March ’21), and the leavers from October '20 only.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
annual_attrition_fte_estimate
Annual attrition FTE estimate
annual_attrition_rate
Annual attrition rate
annual_leavers_fte_estimate
Annual leavers FTE estimate
annual_turnover_rate
Annual turnover rate
attrition_as_proportion_of_leavers
Attrition as a proportion of leavers
attrition_fte
Attrition FTE
leavers_fte
Leavers FTE
timeframe
Timeframe
Footnotes
There were 32,502 FTE children's social workers in post at 30 September 2021, and 31,850 FTE at 30 September 2020.
Agency rate data, at local authority and National level.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
agency_fte
Agency-employed Social Worker FTE
agency_rate
Agency Rate
agency_rate_group
Agency Rate Group
la_sw_fte
LA-employed Social Worker FTE
Footnotes
The FTE agency worker rate is calculated as the number of FTE agency staff working as social workers at 30 September divided by the sum of the number of FTE agency staff working as social workers at 30 September and the number of FTE social workers.
Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames submit a joint return each year, and the numbers are reported against Kingston upon Thames. This arrangement has no impact on regional and national totals.
Components may not sum to totals due to rounding.
Northamptonshire local authority was replaced with two new unitary authorities, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire, in April 2021. Data for both unitary authorities combined was submitted by North Northamptonshire in the 2021 census and is reported against North Northamptonshire in this statistics publication.
Rates are based on the number of LA social workers in post at 30 September.
Data on the breakdown of attrition by time in local authority (LA) are presented.
Time in local authority is a measure for how long a social worker has worked in their current local authority. Where time in LA is provided for leaver and attrition groups, this is how long the social worker had worked in their LA before leaving the local authority. time in local authority is not a measure of the duration an individual has been registered as a social worker.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
full_attrition_fte
Full Attrition FTE
full_attrition_rate
Full Attrition Proportion
la_workforce_fte
LA Workforce FTE
la_workforce_proportion
LA Workforce Proportion
leaver_fte
Leaver FTE
leaver_proportion
Leaver Proportion
moved_into_agency_fte
Moved into Agency FTE
moved_into_agency_rate
Moved into Agency Proportion
proportion_of_total_attrition
Total Attrition Proportion
total_attrition_fte30
Total Attrition FTE
total_attrition_relative_to_la_workforce
Total Attrition Rate relative to LA Workforce
years_in_la
Years in LA
Footnotes
Time in local authority (LA) calculations are not relative to the LA-employed workforce. The proportions of time in LA groups are of the group they are in, with the full column summing to 100%.
For social workers in post at 30 September, time in local authority is calculated as the time in years from when the worker started in a children's social worker role at the local authority to 30 September of the reporting year. Therefore time in local authority does not necessarily represent the amount of time an individual has been registered as a social worker, or how long they have spent in the social work profession.
Components may not sum to totals due to rounding.
For social workers belonging to one of the attrition groups, time in local authority is calculated as the time in years from when the worker started in a children's social worker role at the local authority, to the date they left a children's social worker role at the local authority. Therefore time in local authority does not necessarily represent the amount of time an individual has been registered as a social worker, or how long they have spent in the social work profession.
Breakdown of how many cases were held by social workers at each different organisation role type, provided for agency-employed social workers and LA-employed social workers.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
average_caseload
Mean cases held
orgrole
Organisation role
proportion_holding_cases
Proportion holding cases
total_cases
Total cases
total_fte_holders_of_cases
Total FTE holding cases
total_fte_incl_non_case_holders
Total FTE (including non-case holders)
worker_type
Worker type - Agency-employed Worker or LA-employed Worker
Footnotes
Some local authorities may have difficulty in recording role type, leading to some social workers in the "qualified without cases" role type recorded as holding cases. Please see data quality in the methodology for more details.
Breakdown of the number of days between social workers leaving one role and starting their next role, for Social Workers who left their role in the year ending 30 September 2021.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
cumulative_fte_count
Cumulative FTE
cumulative_percentage_days
Cumulative proportion of total FTE
days
Days between roles
fte
FTE
Footnotes
There were 250 FTE social workers whose new role was recorded as starting before they left their original role. These social workers have been excluded from the figures.
Time between roles is calculated as the time in days (including weekends and bank holidays) between a social worker leaving a role and starting a new role. For example, if a leaver ended a role on a Friday and started new role on a Monday, the time between roles is calculated as 3 days. If a leaver started their new role on the same day that they left their previous role, time between roles calculated as zero days.
There were 50 FTE social workers who left their role on 30 September 2021. These workers have been excluded from the figures, as in each case their time between roles would be calculated as 0 days.
Breakdown of the number of days between social workers leaving one role and starting their next role, for social workers who left their role in October 2020.
Variable names and descriptions
Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:
Variable name
Variable description
cum_percentage_days
Cumulative proportion of total FTE
cumulative_fte
Cumulative FTE
days
Days between roles
fte_sum
FTE
Footnotes
Time between roles is calculated as the time in days (including weekends and bank holidays) between a social worker leaving a role and starting a new role. For example, if a leaver ended a role on a Friday and started new role on a Monday, the time between roles is calculated as 3 days. If a leaver started their new role on the same day that they left their previous role, time between roles calculated as zero days.