Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of levels of (a) skills, (b) pay and (c) opportunities for (i) development and (ii) career progression for support workers in children's social care.

The department supports the children’s social care workforce in many ways, such as by investing more than £50 million every year on recruiting and developing child and family social workers to ensure the workforce has the capacity, skills, and knowledge to support and protect vulnerable children. Each year, the department trains on average 800 new social workers through our fast-track programmes and provides professional development for around 4,000 others.

The department is developing an Implementation Strategy in response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, National Panel Report into the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, and the Competition and Markets Authority report into children’s social care provision. We are working closely with the sector on the recommendations from these reports, including on issues related to the recruitment, retention and development of staff. The Implementation Strategy will be published in early 2023.