Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent comparative assessment he has made of the number of (a) social workers who have left the profession, (b) newly employed social workers and (b) social work students in training in each of the last five years

The department does not collect or produce statistics on the number of social workers who have left the profession, or the number of newly employed social workers.

Social Work England publishes statistics on social work registrations in their performance reports. The latest Social Work England performance report for Q3 2021-22 shows that between January and December 2021, 6,937 social workers joined the Social Work Register, and 4,730 social workers left the Social Work Register. These numbers cover both adult and child and family social work. Social Work England does not produce a breakdown for Child and Family Social Work only. Social Work England’s latest performance report is available here: https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk/media/4181/20220121-item-6-q3-21-22-performance-report-updated.pdf

The department does not produce statistics on the numbers of social work students. Skills for Care produces a social work education report detailing the number of enrolments onto Social Work courses. The latest report is available here: https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data-old/Workforce-intelligence/documents/Social-Work-Education-in-England-2021-Final.pdf. The next report is due to be published in March 2022. Over the last five years of available data the numbers of students on approved higher education social work courses at higher education institutes are outlined in the below table. These numbers exclude apprentices, trainees on fast-track social work programmes, and students on higher education courses at further education colleges.

Social work apprenticeships started in the academic year 2018/19. Statistics are published by the department (specifically within the 'Subjects and levels – standards and frameworks' data with the Apprenticeships and traineeships publication, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships/2021-22). The latest data is available below, including enrolling data for the fast-track routes.

Available data on numbers of students training for social work – HE courses/fast track programmes/apprenticeships

Notes:

• The HE enrolment numbers are rounded to the nearest 10.
• The apprenticeship starts for 2021/22 academic year only cover August-October 2021.