Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of social workers who will be trained through (a) undergraduate and (b) postgraduate routes to qualification in (i) 2015-16 and (ii) 2016-17.

Universities told the Department last year that planned student intake for social work qualifying courses in the 2015-16 academic year are 3,375 undergraduates and 2,081 postgraduates. This data has not been validated.

Updated data for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic year will be available early next year.