Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the consultation on Guide for children and young people: Stable Homes, Built on Love, published on 2 February 2023, if she will take steps to arrange social worker training on the basis of delivering Stable Homes, Built on Love from September 2023.

The department is investing more than £50 million a year in social worker recruitment, training and development through the Frontline and Step Up programmes, the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment, as well as development programmes for children’s social care leaders. The department is working with our delivery partners to ensure our programmes are aligned to the vision for children’s social care, as set out in Stable Homes, Built on Love.

The department will strengthen this further by introducing the Early Career Framework (ECF). We will significantly extend the training and support social workers receive in the early stages of their career. We intend to consult on the content of the ECF, alongside working with a number of early adopter local authorities, from September 2023.

Ensuring initial training is of the highest possible standard will be key to implementing the reform programme. This is why Social Work England will publish new readiness for practice guidance which will clarify the skills and knowledge all social workers should gain from their initial training, assure all initial training providers by 2025, and strengthen their oversight of Practice Educators.

The department will also support the workforce to implement the reform programme by developing Practice Guides, which will bring together the best evidence on achieving the outcomes set out in the children’s social care national framework.