Press Release

Social work employers urged to halt cuts to training budgets

24 September 2009

The General Social Care Council (GSCC) is to urge local authorities not to cut training budgets for social workers in their efficiency drives, as it submits recommendations to the Social Work Task Force for strengthening career long training.

Social workers in England are required by law to register with the GSCC and must undertake 15 days of post-qualifying training each three years as a condition of their registration. The GSCC, which regulates social workers and their training, has written to the Social Work Task Force setting out ways to make this training more robust but warns that employer funding is vital. At a conference tomorrow (24 September), it will tell local authorities that there is money available to pay for social worker training, but this needs to be protected.

The GSCC has proposed that social workers should be given more stringent guidelines about what they need to cover in their 15 days, including requirements to undertake a greater amount of assessed training. Currently social workers can choose how much of their training is made up of either formal taught courses or independent learning such as reading.

The GSCC has also asked the Task Force to urge government to give the green light to consultation on changes to the requirements for social workers' training once on the job. It wants to explore introducing requirements for people in particular roles, such as those working in child protection, to undertake specialist qualifications in that area. The required 15 days of training could also be more closely linked to social worker's career progression, so that the individual must undertake particular training in order to progress up the career ladder.

Addressing employers at a Local Government Chronicle event on the adult social care workforce, Director of Strategy Lin Hinnigan will say:

"Training and learning must not end with initial qualification – we need to strengthen the system so that all social workers are given opportunities for, and required to undertake, ongoing training and professional development befitting the complex and challenging work they do.

But this will only be possible with the commitment of employers. We understand the financial constraints that public services are under and that difficult choices must be made, but we urge employers to protect the funding allocated for social work training. We cannot continue to expect social workers to deal with the most intractable and complex problems in society, without taking their professional development much more seriously."

A Learn to Care funding survey published last year reported that only 20 per cent of respondents actually secured all the National Training Strategy and Human Resources Development grants. Of those who estimated that they would not retain all of the grants, they thought that they would only be able to spend just over half on social care workforce development.

The GSCC's proposals around strengthening ongoing training for social workers will be discussed at their conference next month. 'Social work: a profession to be proud of' will take place on 14 October 2009 at the QE11 Conference Centre in London.