Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to support local councils in the recruitment of permanent social workers.

The adult social work workforce is vital and local authorities, like any employer, need to ensure they have the right staff with the right skills. The Government has provided councils with access to up to £3.6 billion more dedicated funding for adult social care in 2018/19 and up to £3.9 billion for this year.

We have also invested £3 million in a national adult social care recruitment campaign during 2018/19 to raise the profile of the adult social care sector and attract more people to a range of jobs in adult social care.

Across Government, we are continuing our ambitious programme to improve the status and standing of the social work profession, including:

- Ensuring we have sufficient supply of social workers, through provision of the £58 million Social Work Bursary and £20 million Education Support Grant to support student placements;

- Introducing diverse entry routes for people wanting to qualify as social workers, including fast-track graduate programmes such as Think Ahead and Frontline and a new Degree Apprenticeship from 2018/19;

- Supporting the Assessed Supported Year in Employment for newly qualified social workers, providing them with valuable additional support during their first year in practice. The programme has benefitted over 20,000 child and family and adult social workers since 2012, helping to improve recruitment, retention and performance management;

- Funding assessment and development programmes for established social workers to enable them to progress into more specialist or senior roles;

- Supporting a Return to Practice programme for social workers who have left the profession and want to return; and

- Establishing Social Work England as the new specialist regulator for social workers, ensuring clear standards for the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours required to become and remain a registered social worker.

Thanks to these actions we have begun to see an impact - local authorities have been able to recruit an additional 3,000 jobs since last year, including 1,000 more professionals such as social workers and occupational therapists.