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Social workers who have not registered with the General Social Care
Council by April 2005 may no longer be legally entitled to describe
themselves as such.

Community care minister Stephen Ladyman told a fringe meeting at
the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth this week that he would
like to see a year’s notice given to workers next April.

But he added that the timescale for introducing the planned
protected title rules for social workers would be consulted on, and
details of the consultation introduced soon. The session addressed
by Ladyman was hosted by the GSCC and the Social Care Institute for
Excellence.

Education secretary Charles Clarke told delegates he was
“determined to learn the lessons” of the Victoria Climbi’ case to
ensure that a similar “catastrophic series of events” did not
happen again. In a speech that made few references to social care,
Clarke added that he looked forward to Margaret Hodge and Baroness
Cathy Ashton “driving the green paper work forward”.

The previous day, chancellor Gordon Brown pledged to make tackling
child poverty a priority in next year’s spending review. He said
Labour would work towards eradicating child and pensioner
poverty.

He went on to explain that the most important months for
determining life chances were those “from the cradle to the nursery
school”, and there were now more than 500 Sure Start children’s
centres trying to address this.