Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, I rise briefly to pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and his colleagues for giving this most important issue such great attention since the Bill arrived in this House. I wish to look at the experience in social work, where there has been great deterioration in the attention given to the professional development of social workers. I remember reading a letter from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, when he sat on the Front Bench a few years ago, acknowledging the fact that newly qualified social workers were being placed in situations where they had too large a case load and were not being properly supervised. Fortunately, some steps have been taken to address this, but there is clearly still a long way to go on supervision of social workers, and the culture and state of morale of social workers has for many years been eroded by the lack of attention to their professional development. There was a time when there was good professional development; so it can happen, and it could happen in the medical professions. Perhaps I may draw attention to the experience of teachers in Finland. This is particularly relevant to the Minister’s and the Government’s desire to increase autonomy within the health service and devolve responsibility down to the professionals closest to the front line. About 20 years ago, Finland reviewed its education system and decided to emphasise the professional development of its teachers. It decided to select its teachers very carefully, and now all practising teachers have a masters qualification before practising with children. Only one out of 10 applicants for teacher training places is accepted: there is huge competition to get on those courses. A few years ago, when PISA started publishing league tables of education system performance across the world, the Finns came out top of the numeracy, literacy and science tables, not just in one year but in successive years. Teachers are given a huge amount of respect within their society, very good professional training and development, and are well recruited. There is no inspection of the education system—teachers are so well trusted to do the best for children. I pay tribute to the noble Earl and colleagues for giving this the best possible attention in the course of proceedings in your Lordships' House.