You may have missed it but the Department for Children, Schools and Families put out a children's workforce plan yesterday. Much of the stuff on social work had already been announced - piloting independent practices to provide field social work services for looked-after children, piloting arrangements to give newly-qualified staff protected caseloads and improved induction - but the plan said the department was investing £73m over the next three years in developing and training practitioners to work with children and families.

Which is all well and good but there does seem to now be a gaping divide between workforce development policy for children's practitioners (under the DCSF) and for adult social workers (under the Department of Health), with the latter apparently lagging well behind, and integration between the two seemingly limited.