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Governance

Agency workforce resources

Governance is a system of rules, practices and processes used to direct activity. Effective governance supports organisations to achieve their purpose and vision. Each local authority will have its own system of corporate governance. Regional improvement and innovation alliances (RIIAs) need to consider how they will exercise collective governance within the regional area. 

Effective collective governance is essential to ensure that the agency child and family social worker workforce is used appropriately in your local authority and your region.

Each region has developed an agency social work memorandum of understanding (MOU).  This is a document which sets out the agreement of cooperation between the regional local authorities about the use of agency social workers. You can read the regional agency social work MOUs on the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) website.

Governance groups provide the opportunity for discussion between local authorities. It is important to exercise a shared responsibility in decision-making about issues impacting regional performance.  Local authorities have a mutual responsibility to raise and share issues and the actions they’ve taken. This could include collectively exploring any additional regional action that might be taken.

Aim of this resource

This resource sets out how to: 

• encourage strong relationships across the regional MOU 
• apply governance principles 
• work with managed service providers (MSPs) 
• review governance in your regional innovation and improvement alliance (RIIA) 
• manage data collection 
• deal with breaches

Building relationships through mutual responsibility

To ensure the effective supply and management of agency child and family social workers within the regional area, consider the relationship between:   

• commissioners and providers 
• regional partners, the local authority and agency child and family social workers  

In any of these relationships, there may be areas of disagreement and tension over time. Investing in the quality of relationships at every level will support a strengths-based approach to problem solving. 

Understanding the measures through which partners and colleagues feel valued and supported will help build resilient relationships. Such relationships are more likely to be maintained through periods of difficulty. Transparent processes provide clarity and reduce the risk of disagreement. In the governance structure these methods can help to identify and address issues at an early stage such as:   

• a culture of active listening and engagement 
• a well-understood system and process for escalation 

This works best when the escalation process is available to all parties to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) including local authorities, managed service providers (MSPs) and agencies.  

Multi-agency governance arrangements can be complicated and complex. For example, when there are competing priorities between local authorities this can cause friction.   

Also, there can be tension between high-performing local authorities with minimal agency staff and those who may have more agency staff. Both may have different priorities and needs and it may be difficult to find common ground. In effective regional improvement and innovation alliances (RIIAs), local authorities find ways to support each other, sharing knowledge and skills so everyone benefits. 

Effective governance provides a system of support, discipline and accountability. When governance is collaborative and responsibility shared, trust is improved.  This can lead to better outcomes.

Helpful governance principles

There is no single system of governance that works for every region.  Instead, use these governance principles to consider what would work well for your regional improvement and innovation alliance (RIIA).

The principles are:  

• accountability 
• transparency 
• commitment 
• relationships 

 You could consider:  

• how you will develop a sense of shared accountability, essential to the success of the regional arrangements
• how the agreement can be owned by the service within the structure of your governance arrangements 
• how your governance principles are informing data and intelligence activities, and how data and intelligence support your governance arrangements
• how partners (the provider and supplier market/supply chain) understand they need to act together to achieve the best outcomes to improve workforce stability
• being transparent and accountable for making decisions and setting priorities as making sure your supply chain is kept informed is important 
• setting up an agreement to control how data is shared within your region means you can have open discussions and make decisions in everyone's interest  
• how you develop and sustain commitment, which means not giving up when things get tough but continuing to work together to find a solution 
• how you develop trusting relationships, where partners are able to have challenging conversations about critical issues and reach agreement is essential. This makes partners feel supported and listened to and is one of the most important aspects of effective governance 
• developing communication channels such as contact lists, email groups and quarterly meetings. making sure these channels are used regularly to communicate. Make sure that your communication channels are two-way, so you can hear from people as well as inform them 

These governance principles can be applied locally or regionally. It's good practice to review your governance arrangements regularly to make sure they're still relevant and working well.

Planning governance across the region

This will depend on the size of the region. It is helpful for governance groups to be practical and allow time for each local authority to contribute and discuss issues and solutions. 

When planning regional governance, think about how the governance structure reflects the size or complexity of the regional arrangements.   

You may have an existing governance structure you can develop. Once your governance structure is in place, process flow charts can provide an effective reminder to everyone about how decisions are made and information is shared. 

How to make effective governance arrangements

Here are some important questions you may find useful in developing or reviewing your own regional governance arrangements.  As you review these questions, think about your regional improvement and innovation alliance (RIIA) objectives and use the helpful governance principles to assess the effectiveness of your current governance arrangements. Identify areas for development which would support compliance with the agency rules statutory guidance. When thinking about regional governance consider:

• who has ownership of the memorandum of understanding (MoU)/agreement within each local authority (LA)
• who represents the local authority in governance meetings (ideally the director of children’s services (DCS) or an official with the authority to make decisions) 
• inviting others who can make decisions on behalf of the local authority to governance meetings, such as practice leads, human resources, recruitment leads, principal social workers, and workforce development colleagues 
• which working groups in your local authority are linked into the RIIA activities. If there are none, consider how establishing a link might help the local authority, the RIIA and the National Association of Regional Employers (NARE) achieve their objectives

Managing relationships with Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and agencies

Whether the local authority works with an MSP or directly with agencies, developing and maintaining effective relationships with them is critical. This will ensure the MSP or agency understand your needs and can supply you with the agency workforce you need. Regular review of your MSP or agency relationship will help you build and maintain effective communication.  

When reviewing your MSP or agency relationship at the regional or local authority level, consider:

• how effective your current relationship with the MSP or agency is and how you measure this  
• if your agreed deliverables measure the effectiveness of the relationship with the MSP or agency, as well as their performance 
• how you use meetings with the MSP or agency to gather their feedback about what is working well about their relationships with local authority partners 
• if your meetings effectively enable engagement with the agency supply chain to strengthen recruitment campaigns 
• if there are opportunities for you and the MSP or agency to raise issues outside the regular meetings 
• how well your escalation process is working to resolve issues 

Meeting with agencies works best when done in collaboration with other regions. This will help to maintain a consistent message to the market. Thinking about the purpose of the meeting can inform how often you meet.

For example, you could: 

• work with other regions to coordinate meetings with agencies 
• meet with other regional areas to discuss common issues and agree potential solutions 
• meet with agencies to discuss consistent messaging

Using case studies for learning

One helpful way of identifying mutual responsibilities is to collate case studies. These can describe how local authorities and partners have responded to challenges, such as soliciting, false advertising or working with project teams.  

Case studies can help to:  

• describe the issue 
• explain how the decision to respond was made 
• assess if this was successful 
• identify what they learned from the process 

Helpful support resources can assist others in tackling a similar problem, such as providing template emails. See three example case studies from the London area.

Five example case studies from the London area and the West Midlands are below.

Case study London: breach of London pledge rates 

A local authority provided a case study of the steps they took to prevent a breach of the London Pledge rates. 

They discovered that one agency had presented them with candidates as a ‘project team’ solution at rates above the London pledge rates. The same candidates had previously been presented to the same borough as individual candidates at the London Pledge pay rate through the Managed Service Provider (MSP) system.

The local authority negotiated with all four candidates represented by the agency and agreed to pay them at the London Pledge pay rate. All candidates accepted the offer. 

Case study West Midlands: using price caps effectively

West Midlands Region, in partnership with West Midlands Employers (WME), has seen several benefits from collaborative agreement on price caps based on the hourly rate paid to the agency worker. These benefits are: 

• a consistent and transparent approach to pay rates across 14 local authority areas providing set rates against job roles 
• a reduction in breaches to the agreement and a reduction in applications by local authorities for exemptions to the regionally agreed price cap (where local authorities have an exemption agreed, this now has a time-limit and a plan). 
• improved collaborative working with their managed service provider (MSP) and agencies resulting in changes in behaviour, such as a reduction in adverts above the price cap rates 
• agency social workers feel supported in converting to permanent contracts. Over a 10-month period, ten local authorities reported a total of 144 agency to permanent conversions. The local authorities involved collated information about supporting conversion and shared this across the region

Case study London: tackling promotion of roles at incorrect rates

A local authority governance group advised the London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) (London RIIA) that some agencies that were regularly promoting roles at incorrect rates. The issue was escalated and, with support from the Managed Service Providers (MSPs), contacted the agencies involved and made it clear that this was not acceptable.  

The agencies agreed to take the adverts down.  LIIA shared the information with all MSPs to support regional supply chain management.

Case study West Midlands: using data for improvement

West Midlands collects data which monitors spend against the actual rate paid to the worker. The directors review the data regularly, work together to find solutions to problems, and make evidence-informed decisions.

Introducing an ‘induction to the Memorandum of Understanding’ process helped new directors in post quickly understand the regional data and their own local authority data. 

Collecting data sets using this methodology provided the evidence for West Midlands to:

• set controls
• identify trends
• work as a region
• review contracts
• manage supplier expectations

Case study London: combatting inaccurate advertising

The London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) tackled inaccurate advertising in coordination with another region. A regional Local Authority (LA) governance group discovered that an agency was advertising to London candidates suggesting they leave London to receive a better pay rate in another region.

The LA escalated this to LIIA. Both regions felt this was irresponsible behaviour and spoke to the agency about this, highlighting the collaborative working between regions. 

The adverts were taken down and LIIA shared the information with all Managed Service Providers to support regional supply chain management.

You can also use case studies to support implementation and learning as well as continuous improvement. Case studies are a good way of recording learning and sharing good practice. It can be helpful to organise case studies according to ‘types’ including:  

• escalating an issue 
• breaches 
• good news stories 
• general information sharing 

Local authorities sharing the practical steps they took can support other local authorities in a similar position. Sharing reusable resources, such as email templates can be helpful.

Case studies can provide positive examples of behaviours local authorities (LAs), Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and the Regional Innovation and Improvement Alliance (RIIA) want to encourage, as well as examples of behaviours they are trying to reduce. 

Local authorities can use data to improve internal practice

Accurate regional data, provided by local authorities and the MSPs (or agency), can provide the basis for open conversations at a local and regional level. 

Make sure there is a commitment and process to collect the data from all partners. Data analysis supported by a narrative can explain the context. This will provide an opportunity for partners to analyse the data and plot it against RIIA priorities and performance measures. It will also generate a better understanding of the pressures each LA faces.

Local authorities can use the data to interrogate their internal practices, identifying blocks and barriers. Regionally shared data provides transparency and accountability, enabling open debate. Regionally agreed actions for local authorities to take forward can then be reviewed regularly. 

Each LA will receive access to their own data and regional and national benchmarking data as part of the new data collection process in the agency rules statutory guidance. You may want to consider putting in place data-sharing agreements across your region so that your RIIA can analyse, review and use data at a regional level.  

Having reliable data over time means that the governance groups can:  

• explore trends 
• identify areas of focus or priority 
• cross reference with other datasets, such as the census 

For regional data collection to work well, there needs to be an effective data-sharing agreement in place. This may need to be reviewed to check it aligns with the data collection requirements in the statutory guidance.

The benefits of involving MSPs and agencies in designing solutions

Actively involving and engaging managed service providers (MSPs) and agencies in understanding the issues and co-designing solutions are important to develop mutual responsibility.   

This might include involving them in system developments or supply chain engagement.  They might contribute to developing mechanisms for sanctions within existing contracts or provide support to a hiring manager.

Case study: developing a ‘cool-off template’

One local authority has co-developed a ‘cool-off’ template with their MSP.

This template supported a relational approach to speaking to candidates and agencies. It was implemented successfully.

How to deal with breaches to the agreement

Each local authority faces its own workforce challenges, which may lead to breaches of the agreement, such as exceeding the agreed pay rate. The agency rules state that the Directors of Children's Services (DCS) and the chief executive (CE) of the local authority should sign off agreements to breaches of the pay rate. The regional improvement and innovation alliance (RIIA) may create a sign-off process that goes beyond this.

Each regional area should clearly define what counts as a ‘breach’ of the agreement. The RIIA can set up a process to manage breaches. For example, the RIIA may agree that a local authority must ask for permission before breaching any part of the agreement and identify who would make this decision.

The RIIA may agree that this decision is made at a regional level, or sub-regional level, depending on the size and complexity of the region. This ensures a breach is approved in advance by the right people.

To ensure this process is transparent, the RIIA might consider informing all members about the decision to breach. This is important if decisions are not made regionally due to, for example, a sub-regional structure.

The agreement to breach might specify the reason for the breach and any actions agreed. For example, a breach request may be made about pay rate. Permission to breach might include:  

• the pay rate details 
• the number of roles it applies to 
• the contract length 
• an agreement that no other contract terms will be breached (such as the cool-off period)  

All these items are not included in the data return but may be useful so the RIIA can ensure that decision-making remains transparent and provides an early opportunity for discussion. This might include sharing examples of similar situations and talking through potential solutions.

Effective management of breaches  

RIIAs may wish to consider having sanctions in place to discourage further breaches when local authorities, managed service providers (MSPs) or agencies either:

• do not follow the agreed processes without prior agreement
• routinely disregard the agreed processes

It is helpful if sanctions are proportionate and encourage all parties to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to follow the agreed processes. Often, the condition of transparency and threat of sanction is enough, but if you do need to follow through, then apply the sanction as agreed.

When looking into breaches, it’s essential to record the following:  

• the breach itself 
• the reason for the breach 
• the actions taken  
• whether such actions will prevent the breach being repeated 

This information will provide important context for Department for Education (DfE) data returns that highlight price cap breaches and non-compliance with the rules. This will play a role in quarterly benchmarking.

Case study: agreeing a sanctions process

One RIIA has agreed a sanctions process, where a local authority breaching without permission is ‘fined’ a small amount of money.

These funds are then used to augment regional training.  

Other local authorities may find other solutions which provide consequences for breaching the agreement. 

What works in regional governance

Regional governance needs strong cross-regional collaboration. It is important to encourage good working relationships between the local authorities. Supportive relationships between authorities will strengthen the operation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) across the region.

Make sure there is transparency, honesty and mutual respect among all parties to the MoU and open communication, particularly when dealing with difficulties. It is helpful to have cross-network engagement from a team with dedicated capacity to lead/support the regional activity.

Look for evidence of impact, such as: 

• quality 
• cost avoidance 
• compliance 
• stories 
• improved workforce stability 
• reduced turnover 
• conversion of agency to permanent workforce 

 Consider if any of the following might be useful to your region: 

• a legal review of the MOU to provide confidence and assurance to human resources and elected members 
• a single point of contact for the Managed Service Provider (MSP) about escalation and market control, to provide direct engagement with MSPs and agencies and communicate actions to regional partners transparently 
• a commitment to establishing and embedding a culture of high support/high challenge 
• commercial understanding of market control, such as the importance of clear and consistent messaging across the supply chain 
• communication and transparency to enable consistent market messaging and continuous learning and improvement 

Effective governance means that the responsibilities of each of the parties involved are clearly understood and easily reported. Successful governance of the regional agency child and family social worker workforce includes:  

• collaborative and cooperative working  
• cross-regional communication 
• continuous shared learning

Case study: London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA)

The London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) has put in place many strategies to deal with various aspects of governance.  

The London Pledge 

The London Pledge is a regional commitment by all London boroughs, to address the reliance on agency staff and rising costs through collaboration rather than competition. 

Objectives 

Local authorities in London are working together to: 

• improve information-sharing and accountability through data collection and data sharing systems  
• give each area time to develop their offer of permanent work to agency child and family social workers to improve workforce stability 
• enable local authorities to control costs through shared commitment  
• improve engagement with the agency worker supply chain 

Governance structure 

Using an existing infrastructure, London established 5 sub-regional governance groups of between 5 to 8 local authorities/organisations.  

Arrangements are in place so that the content of each governance meeting is shared across all the groups. This maintains a consistent regional message. Each sub-regional group meeting is chaired by a sub-regional lead, usually a Director of Children's Services (DCS).  

Quarterly meetings 

In London, the programme manager meets with the Managed Service Providers (MSPs) on a quarterly basis, after the sub-regional local authority governance meetings take place. These quarterly meetings are to share information and raise any issues.  

Agenda template  

London has developed an agenda template which is used to shape the content of the quarterly meetings. This agenda includes:  

• national and regional updates: latest data collection/over price cap position/local authority actions 
• borough updates: what’s happening locally in relation to the agreement as well as wider workforce development. 

Areas for improvement  

London found the following approaches effective in driving improvement:  

• DCS ownership rather than HR ownership so that accountability sits at decision-making level 
• transparency about breaches and other actions, to build trust through encouraging open conversations and sharing decision-making 
• ensuring availability of accurate data to inform understanding of the regional position and accurate decision-making, including providing visualisations that support trend analysis and identifying learning  
• effective and regular communication with providers in the supply chain, sharing decision-making processes and outcomes. This supports transparency and accurate messaging.

Data collection  

London has been collecting data for some time and has developed a methodology and analysis system. The London census data is an example of the visualisation tools London LIIA has developed to inform local and regional workforce priorities.

It may be helpful to regional decision-making to collect and analyse additional data to the benchmarking data that will be available to local authorities as part of the new data collection. 

The resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 30 October 2024