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Baroness Walmsley: I, too, very much welcome the sentiments which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has highlighted in his amendment. However, I agree with previous speakers that it may not be appropriate to put it in legislation. It may perhaps be more appropriate in guidance, but I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that it would be inappropriate to put it in a contract. I say that because I draw a parallel between the newly qualified
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote: What is being expressed here is clearly crucially important. It underlines some of the previously outlined problems of just how overvalued, overused and unsupported social workers feel. Although I would agree with those who have expressed the view that the Bill is not necessarily the right place for this, it would be good to have some real assurance from the Minister that this will be done and taken into account with regard to the workload. Good management should certainly be rewarded in itself, but it should not be reflected in bureaucracy.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, knows that this is a matter close to our heart and one that we gave great thought to in our commission on social workers. I have one copy of the report; I do not have a box of them, but I could arrange to get one for our next day in Committee. I am sure that you would all find it fascinating and excellent reading.
I pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who is a tremendous spokesman for social workers. I applaud the intention behind the amendment, but I fear that it is unnecessarily prescriptive and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, has said, it could be detrimental. I understand how important it is to have provisions and protections in the employment contracts of social workers. It is a difficult job and is often a labour of love. It still requires a lot of labour, often with a small financial reward. To maintain a strong and well trained social work force, attention must be paid to their conditions of employment, but we have some concerns about this amendment, which seems to place a greater requirement for specifications in a contract for social work services than those that exist in local authorities. Social work services must be allowed at least equal flexibility in employment to local authority social workers and must be able to offer a diversity of care arrangements.
Secondly, there is a specific problem with having a contractual cap on a social worker’s caseload. If one social worker becomes ill, a colleague might know about the unique situation of a particular child and be able to provide temporary care helpfully and efficiently. If there was a contractual caseload cap, would the care provider be forced to find someone else, perhaps less knowledgeable about the situation, to fill in? Surely mechanisms need to be in place to allow for the flexibility necessary to deal with problems arising. Even if the scenario that I have just sketched is not exhaustively persuasive, central
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Lord Adonis: The noble Earl need make no apology for raising this important issue, which is central to everything that we are seeking to do in providing better for children in care or those at risk of going into care. I cannot answer all his points—those that I cannot answer I shall deal with in correspondence—but I can answer quite a number of them. He asked about the number applying to go into the profession. The latest numbers that we have are for 2005-06, when 5,553 students in England registered with the GSCC for pre and post-qualifying training. That was a welcome 16 per cent rise on the 4,770 in 2004-05. I am seeking to ascertain whether we have the figures for 2006-07 and I shall let him know whether we do.
Those figures reinforce another similarly welcome upward trend. In 2006 there were 20,200 social workers in children’s services, which was a 21 per cent increase in the number of whole-time equivalent social workers since 1995 and an increase of 3 per cent since 2004. So although it is true that vacancy rates are very high—the noble Earl mentioned this big ongoing issue earlier—that needs to be set against the fact that numbers are rising significantly in the profession. The problem is that the workload is increasing and therefore the requirement for social workers has been increasing.
Part of the success we have had in attracting social workers—again this relates to the point about investment raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others—is on the back of significant increases in pay for social workers. Average pay for newly qualified social workers in children’s social care increased from £24,565 in 2001 to £29,892 in 2005—a 21.7 per cent increase. The significant resources that I referred to earlier have gone very substantially into recruiting more social workers and paying them better, which I think is what the Committee would wish. The issues that we have in terms of the recruitment challenge need to be set in that context.
We entirely agree with the noble Earl that there is an issue of overload and burnout, particularly among newly qualified social work staff. Care Mattersmade recommendations to improve the capacity, knowledge and skills of the social care workforce. Next month, we intend to publish a children’s workforce strategy action plan, which follows on from Care Matters and the Children’s Plan. This will set out next steps, including worked-up proposals for introducing a newly qualified social worker status, giving social workers additional supervision while they develop confidence in their role, as well as providing a guaranteed year of induction support and appraisal to promote quality standards, as applies in the case of newly qualified teachers.
The noble Earl asked about the timescale. Pilots of the programme to support this newly qualified social worker status will start in the coming financial year, following the action plan. The pilots will include additional training and support for supervisors,
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We also have planned a comprehensive recruitment campaign and a work-based mature graduate entry route into the social work profession, which again will mirror the changes that we have made that have had such success in attracting more people into the teaching profession. We believe that they will encourage people from a wide range of professional backgrounds to enter social work. My officials will be happy to brief the noble Earl on the steps that we are taking in that regard too.
We will be testing new ways of organising the social care workforce, building on the remodelling work that is already being carried out in many local areas. In partnership with the Children’s Workforce Development Council, we are establishing a number of remodelling pilot sites in local areas, which will test out different approaches to social work practice, management and systems. That is wholly in addition to the piloting of the social work practices that I referred to in our earlier discussions. While I fully accept that we have a great deal more to do if we are to get the social work profession we need for the future, the trends are largely encouraging. In the action plan that we will publish next month, we will set out concrete next steps to promote better practice and better support, not least in the support on offer to supervisors and to newly qualifying social workers.
The Earl of Listowel: I thank the Minister most sincerely for the good news that he has given on the progress of the reform and improvements of support for social workers. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a helpful opportunity to look at the progress in developing support for newly qualified social workers and other social workers. The point was raised with me by a psychiatrist who has worked for many years with social workers. Part of her concern was that the job description provided to social workers did not include a description of how many hours of supervision they would receive and details of such support. I wonder whether that might be looked at as well. I am sure that in the Minister’s discussion with his officials it will come out how far that might be improved. As a clinician, the psychiatrist was obliged to have so much supervision on a regular basis, and she felt that the social workers who she worked with were not getting that quality of supervision.
May I say how very welcome the Conservative document, No More Blame Game, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, is. I found it very helpful, and I look forward to receiving a hardback copy rather than the print-out that I have had so far. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
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7 pm
The Earl of Listowel moved Amendment No. 7:
A provider of social work services must seek to establish a partnership with an appropriately located university with a view to—
The noble Earl said: This amendment is on social work providers forming partnerships with universities. Thankfully, I have found my notes for this. The purpose of the amendment is to probe Her Majesty’s Government on whether they are taking steps to promote partnerships between local authorities and universities to raise the quality of degree placements and post-qualifying training. There has long been concern at the quality of degree placements. In the past, I have heard of a student having one of her placements at ChildLine, so having no direct contact with children in that part of her course.
I am told that the most important experience is placement in an actual local authority social services department, but that can be the hardest to find. I understand that there have been improvements in the quality of placements, and I know that the Government have been working on that. I was most grateful to the chief executive of the General Social Care Council for writing to me following Second Reading to lay out the range of experience that is required.
On a recent visit to a social services department in London, we were told by the deputy director that he very much wanted to provide placements for students, but that it was difficult to do so given the pressures on his service. He suggested that securing relationships with universities would be of benefit. Is that already being considered? What role might central government play in promoting such partnerships?
I remember visiting a Centrepoint hostel for young homeless people, Buffy House in Olympia, nine years ago. The institution had a close relationship with the Tavistock Clinic, part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in north London. The staff and manager were supported by weekly consultations with a clinician. All the staff had undertaken qualifications with the Tavistock, and the manager was doing an MA there. Buffy House had the most needy and challenging clients that Centrepoint dealt with, yet it had the lowest sickness absence rate in the whole Centrepoint organisation. It had an excellent reputation for success among the rough sleeper outreach workers, who were keen on sending their young people to that particular place because they felt it likely that they would remain there and not return to the streets.
Research indicates that outcomes for children’s homes improve where the staff and the children’s home share a common philosophy of practice. Partnership with universities would tend to support such a common philosophy in social work
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Baroness Butler-Sloss: I declare an interest as chancellor of the University of the West of England, which teaches a considerable number of would-be social workers. As I understand it, we are reasonably successful in placing student social workers with appropriate providers in the Bristol area. We also provide postgraduate training for continuing professional development. I would be extremely interested to know what is going on and the extent to which there is a degree of commitment between universities and central government. I did not appreciate that this was a probing amendment, though, and I would have been concerned to see it actually in the Bill. It would not be at all appropriate. However, close relationships between universities providing this sort of service and central government departments would be enormously helpful.
Lord Rix: I declare an interest as chancellor of the University of East London. Does the Minister believe that subsection (7B) as it stands at the moment could possibly fall foul of the new part-time funding that will take place in the near future with regard to universities?
Lord Elystan-Morgan: I declare some sort of interest. Up to a few weeks ago, I was president of the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and had been so for about 10 years. It is laudable that a great deal of thought should be given to the tremendous role that university education plays in the context of the training and education of social workers. Clearly, that is something that will grow and should be encouraged at every stage. On the other hand, it might well be impractical for a local authority to seek a form of partnership with a university, if only because few universities could at the drop of a hat say, “Yes, we shall be very glad to extend our envelope in this way. We are perfectly prepared to provide the necessary funding for this”. A few can do that, but most cannot.
In most cases, universities are underfunded year by year, so that there is effectively a cut in the finances that they have at their disposal. The annual funding is normally about half actual academic inflation—this is inevitable inflation, mainly brought about by increased salaries—so that one has the problem that unless the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales take a decision in principle in relation to this, it might be difficult for many institutions to be able to do exactly what they wish in this context.
Lord Judd: I strongly commend the amendment. I agree that it may not be altogether appropriate to insert it in the Bill, but it makes a very important point because we should encourage reflection and the development of quality in the profession all the time. I declare an interest, because I do a small amount of professional advisory work with the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at De Montfort University, and I am involved in the governance of other
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I support this concept, although I agree that it should not be in the Bill. The huge support that universities can give to the whole approach to social work and in terms of all sorts of degree qualifications or part qualifications can be considerable. The funding issue is crucial, and I very much agree with the point about the part-time courses, because we all know that the Open University, Birkbeck and others are under a severe disadvantage, and we need to look at this very carefully. We shall need to think of different forms of funding.
I declare an interest, because I have an American granddaughter-in-law who came over here and is a scientist by training but has no right, of course, to practise. She is married to my grandson and she is acting as an administrator in a school for a year while she gets her teaching qualification approved. It will not cost her anything, as no doubt the school is paying for it. From that moment onwards it will be accepted that she will be able to teach science. We should be grateful for that, given how short we are of science teachers. That is just one example of where the local university could do an extremely important job in regard to people who might wish to change careers and come into social work. We are going to need all these forms of encouragement and the raising of standards and status that we have heard are so necessary, so I hope that consideration will be given to this, although it may be being done already.
Lord Ramsbotham: Perhaps I may add my support for this idea, although I do not know that it necessarily should be in the Bill. Perhaps I may cite two things. There are parallels in this with the Probation Service and how much probation has benefited from the contact that it has had with the university courses run for probation officers, which could be developed. I declare an interest as having an honorary doctorate from the Portland Clinic. Over the years, the Portland Clinic has run events for youth offender teams. There is no doubt that the youth offender teams and managers who come together under the leadership of the Portland Clinic have benefited hugely from the experience. That is another aspect which could be explored in development rather than necessarily put in the Bill.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I support the amendment from this side of the Committee. Last night, we had an effective debate on apprenticeships.
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The point has been raised by various Members of the Committee, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, that at the moment neither local authorities nor universities, particularly those training social workers, have the spare resources to put into making effective such apprenticeships. The Government want to put money into apprenticeships. It would be lovely to see them thinking in those terms.
Lord Judd: I wish to add a postscript to what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said. He referred to studying the effective work being done in the Probation Service in this context. Very interesting work also is being done with the new generation of police officers in the same sort of way. The universities can play a very important role and I hope that my noble friend will take it seriously.
Baroness Morris of Bolton:I had not intended to speak on this, but I cannot resist the gauntlet laid down by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, that there should be cross-party support. It is rather straightforward to make arguments for this amendment. If we are to have a first-rate social workforce, it is undoubtedly a good thing to provide continued training and support to social workers. Still further, continued training works to increase the profile of social workers and creates demand for better and better qualified care providers. Thus, I have great sympathy with this idea.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland: I feel the need to point out that social work led some of these issues in the 1970s, and that we have lost it. During the 1970s and 1980s, one of my first jobs in a local authority was as assistant training officer looking after the apprentice social workers, the untrained social workers, in Lambeth social services department. They were sent off as trainees to the universities with which we had strong relationships. In exchange, the universities provided extra courses for our social workers and we provided placements for social workers on courses. Some of those relationships continue today, so we should not forget that social work has a strong reputation in working jointly with universities, and long may that continue.
Lord Adonis: Relationships between social work employers and universities are critical, especially, but not only, in relation to initial training. I endorse everything said by the noble Earl and by subsequent speakers in this debate, including the remarks made
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7.15 pm
Universities are responsible for identifying places for practice learning and involving employers in social work programme design, the provision of practice and design of placements, student selection, teaching and learning provision, quality assurance and preparation for practice learning. Employers of social workers are expected to contribute to the provision of social care and social work education and training, including effective workplace assessment and practice learning, through the provisions of the GSCC code of practice.
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