Spot checks will ensure registered social workers keep up with learning and development from April 2006, the General Social Care Council promised.

Chief executive Lynne Berry told the delegates at LIVE that the GSCC would ask selected social workers to prove they were recording their learning.

Social workers in England have to keep their skills up to date with 90 hours’ post-registration training and learning over three years.

But in another session, Steve Trevillion, the GSCC’s head of social work education and training, said guidance for social workers on post-registration training was “slim” and would be reviewed and refined.

Director of regulation Heather Wing said the GSCC was not “prescriptive” about what constituted learning and wanted to be “flexible” and “inclusive”. Within that framework a range of learning was acceptable, she said, from private reading and study to working for a post-qualifying award. Other activities might include shadowing a colleague or undertaking research.