Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the administrative burden on social workers.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise and value the vital contribution of social workers, who are predominantly employed by local authorities. To support the administrative burden on social workers, the Department for Education has launched the Support for Social Workers virtual hub, providing tools and resources to help local authorities to retain child and family social workers and implement the Agency Rules Statutory Guidance. Much of the content in this is also relevant to social workers working with adults. The Department for Education is also carefully considering the report from the National Workload Action Group, who are providing insights and solutions for reducing unnecessary workloads for social workers in child social care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of social workers; and what plans he has for a national social work recruitment campaign.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We support the supply of social workers with the right skills, knowledge, and values to support vulnerable adults, children and families. We currently fund the Social Work Bursary, Education Support Grant and the mental health graduate programme Think Ahead to support the recruitment of social workers and the Assessed Year in Employment to support retention of newly qualified social workers.

There are presently no plans for a national social worker specific recruitment campaign. However, the Local Government Association, SOLACE, regional employers organisations, and councils across the country launched the ‘Make a Difference, Work for your Local Council’ campaign and Social Work England runs the ‘Change the Script’ campaign, which support recruitment and retention of social workers.