Haringey Council cuts back social worker training and jobs

Haringey Council has come under fire from the tabloid media for cutting social worker posts and its training budgets for social workers.

The council has confirmed that its training budget will be slashed by £69,000 over the next year to £221,000. It also released figures showing the number of social workers it employs has dropped since 2008. It now has four less children’s social workers and 14 less working in adults’ services.

The move was slammed by the Sunday Mirror newspaper which also quoted David Lammy MP who claimed: “David Cameron has clearly learned none of the lessons from the Baby Peter tragedy.”

A spokesman said the budget cuts had been partly due to a reduction in the area based grant from the government and partly because the training needed to deliver the personalisation agenda had already been undertaken. However, training on safeguarding for both children and adults would not be affected, he said.

Haringey has already invested heavily in training its children’s social workers in reflective practice methods.

“We have and will continue to invest in the training and support of social workers. Training for children’s and adults safeguarding and other statutory mental health and risk training is a particular priority,” the spokesman said.

“We recognise the importance and value that training offers to the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children and the importance of ensuring that we have a skilled and motivated workforce.”

What do you think? Join the debate on CareSpace

Keep up to date with the latest developments in social care. Sign up to our daily and weekly emails

Related articles

Baby Peter case in Haringey

Baby P social workers lose appeal against sacking

Inform subscribers

Guide to analytic and intuitive reasoning