Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will bring forward a plan to institute an early careers framework for social workers enabling five years of supervised and supported professional engagement.

The department commissioned the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care to take a fundamental look at what is needed to support the children and families supported by children’s social care.

We will closely consider the recommendations from the review’s final report, published on 23 May. We will do this alongside the recommendations from the National Panel Review into the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, which was published on 26 May, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s study into children’s social care placements, which published its final report in March. The department will set out a detailed and ambitious implementation strategy by the end of the year that takes account of the three reviews.

The department supports the principle of the review's proposed Early Career Framework, and we will set out plans to refocus the support social workers already receive early on in their careers as part of the implementation strategy.