Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children’s social workers who will have gone through the national assessment and accreditation system by the time of the scheme’s closure.

Around 1,100 practitioners and 800 practice supervisors will have undertaken assessment activity under the national assessment and accreditation system programme by the end of March 2022. The delivery model for the assessment and accreditation of child and family social workers is changing and will not continue beyond March 2022.

The department is committed to embedding assessment and accreditation for child and family social workers, based on the post-qualifying standards, and we are continuing to work with the sector on a new delivery model.

Our aim is to support social workers to continue to improve their practice by offering a coherent set of development and accreditation opportunities at key career stages. At the same time as developing a new delivery approach, we will take the opportunity to consider the place of assessment and accreditation within the post-qualification career pathways for social workers. This will be done in the context of any recommendations from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, due to be published in spring 2022.