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Cash-strapped social services departments are already reluctant to release care staff for training. The Budget cuts to local authority spending will only serve to make matters even worse writes Judy Hirst

Each time a care home scandal hits the headlines, the cry goes out for more staff supervision and training. All the major reports into abuse in children's homes in recent years have stressed training is key to preventing future disasters. It is a recurring theme in reports on elder abuse and investigations into mental health care crises.

Yet the proportion of social care staff with professional qualifications remains extremely low. In a workforce of three quarters of a million, less than 40,000 are qualified. Two-thirds work in residential or domiciliary care, and are mainly low-status female staff, with little formal training. Many local authorities are committed to change and the introduction of Scottish and National Vocational Qualifications is making training more accessible. Local Government Management Board figures show that nearly a quarter of a million people are registered for vocational qualifications in health and social care.

However, as a Social Services Inspectorate report, Training by Design¬ , indicates, there is still a long way to go. The good news from the SSI is that training support funding from central government is helping strengthen the role of training in service development. But the SSI is less positive about local authorities' records when it comes to allowing training time out for staff.

'A common area of difficulty was achieving a balance between the use of resources for providing training or staff development activities, and funding the release of staff to undertake these activities,' the report notes. The inspectors found there were 'particular problems in the release of staff providing residential services.'

Satya Schofield, a member of the SSI's training support programme steering group - and directorate training manager for Bradford social services department - says: 'It's a problem when you're providing a direct service to clients in a care home setting. If a member of staff is not available, someone else must do it. It's much less of an issue when it comes to releasing social workers or managers.'

The Social Care Association agrees that lack of cover for care staff is a major difficulty. Its training centre manager, Sue Davis, says: 'It's appalling that families hand over their loved ones to employees with such limited access to training. Improving staffing ratios is the key to enabling more care workers to be released.'

However, such a prospect seems remote, particularly in view of the 1997-8 Budget settlement for local authorities. Association of Directors of Social Services president, Bob Lewis, says that whichever way you look at the revenue support grant figures, they mean a 4 per cent cut in care services. Given that staff employment is one of the biggest cost elements in social services' budgets - and next year's training support grant is at a near standstill at £35.5 million - care worker staffing ratios are unlikely to improve.

This has certainly been the experience in Kent, where social services director Peter Smallridge says he has had to cut the training budget by £500,000 in the past three years and impose a freeze on filling vacancies in all but the most essential services. 'We have not been able to provide the training we would want, particularly for staff in residential care.'

Smallridge, who chairs the ADSS's resources committee, says this situation is replicated across the country; which goes some way towards explaining why so many social services staff fail to complete their NVQs. Tony Smith, head of care services development at the Local Government Management Board, says that out of nearly 68,000 health and social care NVQ award holders, the percentage from social services is lower than other sectors. 'A higher number of social services staff are getting stuck. The lack of cover, and time to carry out assessments properly, is an important factor,' he says.

This pattern is also confirmed by a new survey of the skill levels of staff and volunteers working in mental health residential and day care­ . Prompted by the Newby inquiry into the death of a volunteer hostel worker, the study found only one-fifth of care workers had related qualifications before taking up posts. And only 20 per cent of social services workers gained qualifications in their current jobs, compared with more than 40 per cent in the health field. Service users were reported to be concerned about the level of training.

But given the financial pressures, what can be done? Satya Schofield believes a lot more can be achieved: 'Some managers succeed. In Bradford a group of residential and day care managers are taking steps to organise a rolling programme for training.' Many authorities are looking outside for their training provision in an effort to reduce overheads.

Warwickshire social services department, which has contracted out its in-house training for social workers and care staff to the Social Care Association and the University of Warwick, has gone further down this road than most. John Weeks, deputy social services director, says: 'The discipline of commissioning services makes you look very closely at costs.'

Its staff development unit of more than ten employees has been reduced to a commissioning group of three, and the council has entered into service-level agreements with its providers. 'We are keen to market training places to other authorities and the independent sector to help make the service cost-effective,' says Weeks.

As more social services departments fully embrace the contract culture - a process speeded up by compulsory competitive tendering requirements in personal social services - Warwickshire's example is likely to be repeated elsewhere. There is already a burgeoning independent training sector, some with very substantial local authority contracts.

The Learning Agency, for example, has a two-year contract with Newham Council in London. Director Peter Riches says that contracting out training is an option senior managers are increasingly promoting.

However, the enthusiasm is not universal. Bob Lewis voiced concerns about training being provided by commercial organisations during his speech to the recent Annual Social Services Conference. The issue is being examined as part of a wider review of the association's human resources strategy. And CCETSW has expressed worries over the danger of training services becoming fragmented.

But unless someone comes up with the necessary resources, the training, supervision and appraisal of care workers is likely to remain a low priority - until the next time there is a tragedy in a care home and an inquiry concludes these were critical issues.

¬ Department of Health, Training by Design: SSI Inspection of Social Services Departments' Planning and Review Processes Relating to the Training Support Programme 1995-6, DoH, 1996

­ Mental Health Training and Qualifications Study, Joint Initiative for Community Care, November 1996