The Department for Education has announced two new appointments, including for the chair of new regulator Social Work England, aimed at working closely with the social work profession to share best practice.
Lord Kamlesh Patel of Bradford will chair Social Work England, the dedicated social work regulator. Patel, a former social worker at Bradford social services, is a Labour member of the House of Lords.
Social Work England will be a dedicated regulator setting the professional standards for social workers. Patel said of his appointment: “Supporting and sustaining good social workers requires a strong, confident and effective regulator, so I want Social Work England to not only lead the way in driving up standards, but also to work collaboratively with the profession to ensure that all standards are evidence-based, rooted in real experience and values, and are fit for the 21st Century.”
Education secretary Damian Hinds also announced that former children’s minister Edward Timpson will chair the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, responsible for overseeing reviews of serious child safeguarding cases which the panel deem to include complex or nationwide issues.
‘Further improvements’ to children’s social care
Alongside the two appointments, Hinds announced:
- New standards for qualified child and family social workers to follow, set out in the Knowledge and Skills Statements, after a consultation through a series of roundtable discussions around the country.
- Confirmation of grants for the remaining eight children’s services taking part in phases one and two of the national assessment and accreditation system for children and family social workers. The total grant funding for the 21 authorities is worth £3.5 million.
- The set-up of a board for the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care and the testing of approaches to the development, sharing and adoption of evidence with a small number of councils.
He encouraged local areas to apply for a role as “early adopters” of the new safeguarding arrangements which place equal responsibility for keeping children safe on councils, police and health workers.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 
Hampshire County Council 
Lincolnshire County Council 
Norfolk County Council 
Northamptonshire Children’s Trust 
South Gloucestershire Council 
Wiltshire Council 
Wokingham Borough Council 
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We need honest and open policies we need social workers with life experience understanding and supportive not someone out of uni who cannot communicate on all levels when dealing with the public and more so when dealing with struggling families .We need honest social workers we need social workers to wear body cameras and all interactions between social workers and families should be recorded to protect the children their families and also to protect the social workers who do their job with compassion .
There are too many scandals within social services being exposed it has to stop and the only way to stop it is to record it some of these people who work in social services should not be near children and families they destroy families they damage children it has to stop
I seriously hope this will help famies my child was adopted has mental health issues that are being blamed on mums mental health emmotional harm to children having no support children were removed by my violent ex husband supported by social services they have placed children in fathers care my daughter is now under a section 20 because of fear of staying with her father currently in PLO communication is so poor and jen is so right we need social workers with life skill someone needs to address this crisis.
Great news as a recently retired sw manager in childrens services the more focus we have on rasing standards as got to be a good thing for my wonderful profession.We have been doing this for some time through our asye schenes butthe more input we get at national level can inly be a good thing.
My glass is always half full..
Lets see how this plan pans out.
I don’t understand why we have yet more qualifications to do our job. We have to complete a degree and I have completed PQ1 and also completed the Childcare Award along with lots of other training regularly throughout my career. We don’t need anymore qualifications, we need manageable caseloads so we can spend more time with the children and get to know them better.
A cake is still a cake.
A scone is still a scone.
A social worker is still a social worker.
We need more of them and we still need more of them. Unless that changes there will be no changes.
Please, please stop all the appointing of yet more persons to sit on even more boards to look at this and that which translates to more scrunity, monitoring, criticising, targeting of those who do a most difficult, extremely stress job especially in the present climate.
We don’t need Lords etc to realise what is required and it is NOT more paperwork, test, etc, it is so simple – more workers, DECREASE in case loads, realistic time scales. Stop talking bout skills being transferrable and allow Social Workers to work in an area they prefer as in the case in other professions like teaching, nursing, police, instead of doing stupidness like joining looked after teams with leaving care teams and giving all ages groups to workers. Remind senior managers that the word EMPATHY applies to Social Work and they should put into ptactice when dealing with staff and stop the bullying and blame culture!!
Please sort it sooner rather than later .
Social care does need to be monitored by a professional. There’s clearly massive gaps and floors on the social care system where children and parents are being let down and failed by the social worker. Having huge consequences. Sounds hopeful. I wish them success.
Jeremy Hunt wants to bring the social worker under the control of the NHS. So much for the hype in the past of ‘reclaiming social work.’ As Sindy outlines more paperwork: the PCF as now increased to a further three tiers, there is also now the issue of social workers being regulated to the client group they can now assess and of continued CPD which is being enlarged. Hence the future of social work is bleak. Be Orange.
More family social workers with a insight and understanding of parents with mental health