Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to help increase the retention of social work practice educators.

The department is extremely grateful to social workers for their commitment to improving the lives of children and families every day. Practice Educators play a crucial role in the system, using their experience and expertise to support student social workers. That is why the regulator, Social Work England, has commissioned research to better understand how to support them in providing high quality placements.

The department’s study of local authority child and family social workers provides information on retention in local authority child and family social work. Further information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/longitudinal-study-of-local-authority-social-workers.

Social worker pay is a local government matter and pay rises were agreed for all local government staff on 1 November 2022. Through the department’s planned reform to the Children’s Social Care system, set out in Stable Homes, Built on Love, published on 2 February, we will work to improve transparency on pay and progression for social workers. The department is also supporting local authority leaders to strengthen their recruitment and retention strategies, including the recruitment of up to 500 additional child and family social worker apprentices, consulting on national rules relating to agency social workers, addressing unnecessary workload drivers, and providing best practice tools on improving working conditions.