CC LIVE: GSCC inquiry into social work role to report

The General Social Care Council’s inquiry into the roles and tasks of social workers will report next week, delegates at Community Care LIVE Children and Families were told yesterday.

The inquiry has identified key tasks that social workers were best placed and trained to carry out, Owen Davies, head of policy development at the GSCC, told the conference.

The key tasks for children’s social workers were taking action to safeguard children, including removing them from families if they are at risk of harm; and looking after children in care.

The inquiry will also say that children and families social workers and departments must work together and in partnership with other agencies and professionals. Service users must also have a voice in the developing and commissioning of services, it will say.

Delegates criticised the lack of suitable placements on degree courses and the lack of generic training at undergraduate level. However, Graham Ixer, head of social work education, said that the GSCC had audited degree courses in England and found them to offer the necessary generic training.

The inquiry was launched on the back of the Options for Excellence review into the social care workforce, which reported last October.

Davies also anounced that the local government social services workforce survey, also due out shortly, would say that vacancy rates had fallen to 9% in 2006, down from over 11% in 2005.

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