National Workload Action Group Secretariat and Lead Delivery Partner on Best Practice Guidance for Retention and Agency

This PIN is for market engagement only. It does not signify the commencement of any procurement process and does not constitute any commitment by the Department for Education. If the Department for Education decides to commence any procurement process as contemplated by this notice, a separate notice will be published at the relevant time. The requirements and values set out below may be subject to change. The children social care sector is facing significant social worker retention pressures and challenges with social worker recruitment agencies. To support the sector in its response to this, it is the Department for Education's intention to undertake a procurement exercise to appoint a suitably experienced organisation to deliver the following high level objectives relating to child and family social work: 1) deliver a secretariat role to convene a group of sector and practice experts to identify unnecessary workload drivers for social workers; 2) deliver the solutions recommended by the group; 3) produce tools and guidance to support Local Authorities with social worker retention; and 4) produce tools/guidance to support Local Authorities in the engagement of agency social workers.