Boost social worker training, say Tories

Investment in the recruitment and training of social workers must be put on the same footing as similar campaigns in the NHS, according to Conservative children and health spokesperson Tim Loughton.

Plans to improve services for vulnerable children would “amount to little” unless there was a “well-resourced, well-trained and well-motivated workforce of children’s social workers”, Loughton told the Baaf Adoption and Fostering and Adolescent and Children’s Trust conference last week.

While he would not “sign a blank cheque” and promise to invest the £615m that Baaf and the Fostering Network believe is needed to bring fostering services in England up to scratch, he said the figure was not “unrealistic”.