Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
378-379)
MS LIN
HINNIGAN, MR
ALLAN BOWMAN
AND MS
ANDREA ROWE
12 NOVEMBER 2009
Q378 Chairman: Good morning. Could I
thank you for coming along and helping us today with our third
evidence session in relation to our inquiry into social care.
I wonder if, for the record, I could ask you to introduce yourselves
and the current positions that you hold.
Ms Hinnigan: Lin Hinnigan, I am
Director of Strategy for the General Social Care Council.
Mr Bowman: Allan Bowman, Chair
of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, generally known as
SCIE.
Ms Rowe: I am Andrea Rowe and
I am Chief Executive of Skills for Care.
Q379 Chairman: I have got a question
for all of you. We have heard from the previous witnesses about
poor quality care. Can you each tell us briefly about your organisation,
what it has done to improve the quality of social care and how
far your organisation is to blame for the persistence of poor
quality services? I know that end part is a bit tough, but I wonder
who would like to start?
Ms Rowe: I will start. When I
took up the job 10 years ago at the National Training Organisation,
which was a predecessor of the Sector Skills Council, there was
80% of the workforce in social care that had no qualification
related to their job role. We have turned that reasonably around
so that now 60% of the workforce has got a qualification that
fits their job role, which is largely the Level 2 National Vocational
Qualification. Also, because right from the beginning the organisation
recognised that the major budget for workforce development was
going to be at a regional level we decided that we would have
a fairly extensive regional structure, which was quite expensive
but it certainly paid off because we have matched the funding
that the Department of Health put in, which has been £15
million a year for the last five years, and have pulled into the
sector over the last four years £73.8 million. Train to Gain
and European Social Fund and Regional Development Funds have put
in a further £133 million. We know that without our brokerage,
without Skills for Care's intervention, we would not have been
able to get that. That has been the source of the funding that
has raised the qualification of the workforce.
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