My hopes that Estelle Morris might be more informative at the national children's and adults' social services conference than the current education secretary yesterday were immediately dashed with the words "this session is very much a consultation exercise". She also seemed to have forgotten where she was, reverting back to the role of teacher at one point and instructing her audience to "stop chatting and pay attention".
However, the session was still worthwhile. Asked to respond to a series of multiple choice questions about the skill sets and training needs of the future children's workforce, the delegates revealed the scale of change required....
Headline results included....
The headline findings:
-92% of delegates thought their organisations' workforce would definitely or probably need different skills in five years time to the skills they have now
-the major skills needed by frontline workers in five years will be multi-disciplinary working, cross-sector working and communications
-only a third of delegates thought the training currently on offer broadly met the needs of their workforce
-the key concern about current training provision is insufficient funding
-only 55% of delegates said they felt confident about being able to deal with the challenges facing the sector