Two-year early career development programme for new children’s social workers will launch in September 2027, replacing assessed and supported year in employment, DfE confirms.
The replacement for the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) in children’s services will be limited to permanently social workers carrying out statutory duties, the Department for Education has said.
This means the two-year support scheme will not apply to agency staff or those employed outside the statutory sector or in bodies commissioned to carry out statutory functions.
This is in contrast to the ASYE, which is open to child and family social workers in any sector, whether permanently employed or in an agency role.
The early career development programme (ECDP), as it will be known, will also only apply to practitioners who have qualified in the three years before starting the programme, down from the four-year interval that applies to the ASYE.
ASYE replacement to launch in 2027
The DfE set out the eligibility criteria for the ECDP – formerly known as the social work induction programme – in its response to its consultation on the establishment of the scheme and the standards against which those completing it would be measured.
Previously known as the post-qualifying standards, these have been renamed the early career standards, to emphasise the fact that they apply to practitioners at the start of their careers.
It also said that the ECDP would be launched in September 2027, with the final ASYE programme running in 2026-27. The latter will be administered directly by the DfE after Skills for Care, which had previously overseen the scheme on the department’s behalf, decided it could no longer perform this role.
Scope of early career development programme
The standards and the programme are designed to support achievement of the outcomes in the national framework for children’s social care, including helping families get the support they need, keeping children safe and supporting those in care to live in stable, loving homes.
The framework is statutory guidance for local authorities; as such, the ECDP was always designed to focus on statutory social work carried out by councils.
Despite this, in its consultation on the establishment of the standards and programme, the DfE asked if it should retain the broad-based eligibility criteria that applies to the ASYE.
This was largely supported by the just over 100 consultation respondents who answered the relevant question, 72% of whom backed the inclusion of social workers in non-statutory roles, with 61% calling for agency workers to be in scope.
Exclusion of agency and non-statutory practitioners
However, in its response to the consultation, the DfE said it would limit eligibility to social workers permanently employed by a local
authority or an organisation undertaking statutory duties on behalf of a local authority, within three years of them qualifying.
Organisations undertaking statutory duties on behalf of councils include children’s trusts – not-for-profit bodies that deliver the full gamut of children’s social care functions on behalf of 10 councils that also own them – and independent fostering agencies (IFAs).
The department later clarified that the programme would be available to child and family social workers carrying out statutory duties, and that it would provide specific details in due course. This suggests that Cafcass and, potentially, NHS staff, may be included.
However, agency staff, along with practitioners in private, voluntary and independent sector bodies that do not do statutory work on behalf of councils, will not be able to benefit from the scheme.
Despite these staff being within the scope of the ASYE, the DfE said the number of practitioners who would no longer be eligible for support under the ECDP would be “very small”.
According to Skills for Care’s latest annual report on the ASYE, 94% of participants in 2024-25 were from a local authority, a similar proportion to previous years.
The exclusion of agency staff is in line with the DfE’s rules on councils’ use of locums, under which authorities are expected not to hire those without three years’ cumulative experience in a permanent children’s services role in England.
Backing for scheme but concerns over employer capacity
Just over half (54%) of respondents to the DfE’s consultation backed its proposals for a two-year programme led by employers, within a “supportive” national framework that ensures consistency.
The biggest concern raised was around employers’ capacity to deliver two years of support, in contrast to the one-year ASYE. Reflecting this, large majorities of respondents supported the DfE providing funding, guidance on programme delivery, support for practice supervisors and assessors overseeing NQSWs and learning materials.
In the light of the response, the DfE said it planned to commission “high-quality suppliers…with expertise in the best evidence-informed social work practice and in effective pedagogy” to deliver “a consistent structured programme” in partnership with employers. It said the ECDP would have “the relationship between the supervisor and the new social worker at its core”.
As is supposed to happen with the ASYE, the DfE said practitioners would “require protected time to fully realise the benefits of the programme of support”.
“We are aware that this can be challenging for employers, given workload pressures in the sector and we are considering how best to address this.”
How social workers will be assessed
In relation to assessments, there was majority support for the DfE’s proposals for a similar approach to the ASYE. Under this, assessors within employer organisations would carry out “assessment activities”, such as observing direct practice, analysing case notes or gathering feedback from families and peers, while also providing support and guidance to the NQSW.
Similarly to respondents’ views on the wider programme, concerns were raised about the potential assessment burden on employers, while there was also strong support for DfE provision of clear guidance on the process, including templates.
In response, the DfE said it believed there was more it could do to reduce the burden of the process. It envisaged that the ECDP would involve “light-touch” assessments at key points to check the practitioner’s understanding and a proportionate assessment at the end of the programme based on performance against the standards. This would likely involving some direct observations of practice, it added.
The DfE said it would produce further details on the assessment process in due course, while also considering what support it would provide for employers to deliver it.
No requirement for NQSWs to pass programme
As set out in the consultation, there will be no national requirement for NQSWs to pass the programme, nor will this have any implications for their status as registered social workers. For example, there will be no provision for practitioners to “annotate” their entry in Social Work England’s register to specify that they had passed the ECDP.
Rather, it will be for employers to decide the consequences of any assessment outcome, for example, in relation to pay and career progression, the department added.
According to Skills for Care, 99.5% of children’s social workers who started the children’s ASYE from 2021-22 to 2023-24 passed.
Funding level to be confirmed
The DfE is yet to confirm how much funding it will allocate to employers to enable them to deliver the programme.
Under the ASYE, each employer is given £2,000 per eligible NQSW: £1,000 when they are registered onto the scheme and a further £1,000 on completion.
Source: Community Care
