Almost 20% fewer newly qualified practitioners started assessed and supported year in employment programmes in 2024-25 than 2023-24, with numbers at their lowest level in at least a decade.
There was a sharp drop in the number of children’s social workers starting assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) programmes in 2024-25, a report has shown.
Almost 20% fewer practitioners (2,599) were registered by employers to do the ASYE in 2024-25 than in 2023-24 (3,203), according to Skills for Care’s annual report on the children’s scheme.
The 2024-25 figure for the number of registrations was the lowest in at least a decade, based on Skills for Care records going back to 2015-16, with the previous low being the 2,630 recorded for 2016-17.
The workforce development body said it had also seen a drop in the number registering for the adults’ scheme in 2024-25, though it did not suggest a reason for the declines.
In response to the fall, a spokesperson for the Department for Education (DfE), which funds the children’s scheme, said: “The programme is demand led; as a result the number of enrolments is variable. Over the last two years we’ve seen the highest numbers in the social work census and increases in [the number of full-time equivalent practitioners] in the child and family social work workforce.”
The spokesperson also highlighted the fact that number registering in 2023-24 was the highest yet recorded.
Fall in number of social work graduates, figures suggest
One possible reason for the fall is the fact that 2024 was not a graduation year for the biennial Step Up to Social Work course, meaning there was a lower supply of graduates trained to work in children’s services than in the previous year.
Social Work England reported 5.3% drop in the number of final-year students on social work courses in 2023-24, compared with 2022-23, in a report last year on social work education, though stressed that the data was not reliable enough to identify trends.
While Step Up may have been a factor, the number registering on the ASYE in 2024-25 was significantly lower than the number that did so in the last non-graduation year for the fast-track course, 2022-23, when there were 2,844 registrations.
The fall in registrations was driven by local authorities which, as in previous years, accounted for the vast majority of practitioners registered for the ASYE (94% in both 2023-24 and 2024-25). Their number dropped from 3,005 to 2,452 year on year.
Regionally, the biggest reduction in registrations was in London, where numbers fell from 543 to 396, while proportionately, the largest fall (33%) was in the North East. The region had 189 registrations in 2023-24 and 126 in 2024-25.
Racial inequalities in failure rates
Data for the 2021-22 to 2023-24 cohorts showed that, of 4,700 newly qualified social workers recorded as having completed the ASYE, 99.5% (4,676) passed, with the proportion doing so increasing each year.
However, as in previous years, Skills for Care identified racial inequalities in failure rates, with this being true of 1% of black and minority ethnic staff and 0.2% of white staff among the 2022-23 cohort, down from 1.2% and 0.4%, respectively, for the 2021-22 group.
Three-quarters of ASYE leads (76%) surveyed by Skills for Care said their organisation incorporated anti-racism into their programmes, including through training and supervision. Most leads (80%), ASYE assessors (67%) and NQSWs (73%) surveyed said their organisation was clear about its policy and practice in relation to anti-racism.
The report also identified a growing gap in pass rates between men and women. While the failure rate for women fell year on year, from 0.81% for the 2020-21 cohort to 0.3% for the 2022-23 group, the rate for men more than doubled, from 1.06% to 2.3%, during this time.
Workload continues to be ‘major concern’
Skills for Care’s report was based on its role administering and quality assuring the ASYE on behalf of the DfE. This comes to an end this month after the workforce development body decided it could no longer carry out the role.
The DfE is taking on this responsibility itself for 2026-27, which is due to be the last year of the ASYE in children’s services before its replacement by a new two-year support programme for local authority NQSWs.
Similarly to previous years’ reports, Skills for Care warned that workload was a “major concern” for NQSWs.
Under the ASYE framework, participants should carry a workload equivalent to 90% of more experienced social workers’, with 10% of their working week protected for development time.
Leads, assessors and NQSWs were asked to rate their agreement, from 1 to 5, with whether this was the case in their organisation, and gave an average score of 3.8, a similar result to the 2023-24 survey (3.7).
“Despite supportive policies, some NQSWs take on too much due to team loyalty or staffing shortages,” said the Skills for Care report. “High referral rates and ongoing recruitment pressures compound the issue, often undermining NQSWs’ learning and increasing burnout risk.”
It called on senior managers to “actively safeguard protected development time and ensure workloads align with ASYE criteria”.
‘Significant variation’ in supervision
ASYE participants should also receive a minimum level of reflective supervision during the assessed year, initially weekly, then fortnightly and, from the six-month point, monthly.
Leads, assessors and NQSWs gave an average score of 4.1 on their agreement with this standard, the same score as in 2023-24.
However, Skills for Care found that, while most employers took the issue of supervision provision seriously, there was “significant variation” in what NQSWs received, affecting their experience of the ASYE.
“Challenges often arise from staffing instability, organisational change, or sickness absence,” the report warned.
Concerns over churn in ASYE co-ordinator role
The report also raised concerns about “continuing churn” among ASYE co-ordinators, whose role is to administer and quality assure the programme in each organisation, as well as the isolation of those carrying out the function.
Monthly online drop-ins for co-ordinators have highlighted issues including the challenges of supporting NQSWs with additional learning needs and time management issues, delivering protected development time for part-time staff and responding to the use of generative artificial intelligence by both social workers and assessors.
Skills for Care said it delivered training to 18 new ASYE co-ordinators during 2024-25, to enhance their knowledge of the national framework and their confidence in the role.
Questions over how recommendations will be taken forward
Skills for Care made a number of pledges on the back of the report, including that it would:
- Work with employers to ensure protected development time and manageable caseloads are in place, in line with ASYE guidance.
- Provide training to ASYE assessors to ensure high-quality reflective support for NQSWs.
- Continue to hold drop-in sessions and training for new ASYE co-ordinators, with a focus on building confidence and reducing isolation.
- Continue to monitor disparities in completion rates, including between men and women and between black and minority ethnic staff and their white colleagues.
However, with Skills for Care no longer administering the children’s ASYE from 2026-27, it will not be in a position to take forward these recommendations.
In relation to this, the DfE spokesperson said: “We are in the process of finalising the arrangements for the DfE run service and will provide further information in due course. In developing the successor programme to replace ASYE, we are drawing on the learning from the existing ASYE programme and ensuring that this is reflected in the design of the new programme.”
Source: Community Care, Mithran Samuel
