The General Social Care Council (GSCC) announced today that it is reviewing its powers to inspect social work degree courses as part of a number of steps aimed at strengthening the education and training on offer to social workers.

The announcement came as the regulator published ‘Raising standards: social work education and training’, their annual report looking at the overall picture of social work education and training in England including both initial and post-qualifying training. It finds that the degree is preparing students for the start of their career in social work but the support and ongoing training once they enter the workplace needs to be strengthened. The review, which has already begun, is looking at the GSCC’s existing powers and whether these need to be extended.

The GSCC also calls for a system where all social workers receive a specialist post-qualifying award early in their career to ensure degree learning is consolidated in practice. Other recommendations include:

the development of national standards for post-qualifying training in safeguarding;

simplification of the funding arrangements to Higher Educational Institutions, and the linking of funding to quality standards;

the development of a workforce model to ensure the right number of social workers are being trained in the right regions; and

further research needed into the decline of men into social work, and the poor progression rates amongst some black and minority ethnic students

Rosie Varley, Chair of the GSCC, said: “Tragedies such as the death of Baby P and other recent cases remind us how immensely challenging the role of a social worker is. We need to attract the best people into the profession, with a diverse workforce that reflects the society we live in.

As well as attracting the best people, our social workers need to have the very best training right throughout their careers. That is why we are reviewing whether we have the right powers to robustly inspect social work degree courses. We also believe there needs to be the creation of national standards for on the job safeguarding training and stronger requirements for employers to commit to good quality on-going training for social workers.”