Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on establishing an Early Career Framework for social workers as recommended by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

The department has committed to developing a new Early Career Framework (ECF) for child and family social workers, significantly extending the training and support social workers receive at the beginning of their career.

As set out in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, our children's social care implementation strategy, the initial induction period for all social workers will be extended to two years with an offer of further training and development up to five years. We will explore how we can make the ECF an entitlement for all child and family social workers from September 2026.

The programme will be underpinned by a new framework document, setting out the knowledge and skills social workers need to support and protect children and families. The department is in the process of recruiting an Expert Writing Group to write the framework document and will announce the membership of the group shortly. The group will engage widely with stakeholders throughout the process, and we will also consult formally on the content of the framework document.

​The department is committed to designing the ECF programme with the sector and will shortly appoint a small number of Early Adopter local authorities to work with us. Initially, these will be local authorities that are already running an extended early career programme, beyond the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE), before we expand to a wider range of local authorities. In addition, the department is working with stakeholders from across the sector to develop and refine delivery plans, including Directors of Childrens Services, Social Work England, Principal Social Workers, the Chief Social Worker and Ofsted.