My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate: the noble Lords, Lord Warner, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Tyler, Lady Howarth, Lady Pitkeathley and Lady Pinnock. They have made a number of extremely important points and I want to give them due consideration and attention.
I am also mindful of the comments made earlier today by the Education Select Committee, which were referred to by a number of speakers. Noble Lords have my firm commitment that we will carefully study the recommendations of the committee and consider them as we go forward.
In order to cover all the concerns raised by noble Lords, I propose to speak to Clause 21 and, alongside it, address the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Warner, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on the establishment of a new independent regulator—the general social work council. I will then speak to Clause 20.
Clause 21 concerns the appointment of a regulator of social workers in England. Before I speak in detail about the clause, I want to address head on issues raised by the DPRRC. The committee raised concerns in its recent report that this legislation does not specify who will act as the regulator, leaving it, instead, to be addressed in secondary legislation. The Government are proposing that Secretaries of State will initially exercise regulatory responsibility for social workers. They will do this in practice by setting up an executive agency to regulate the profession. I will of course set out the arguments in favour of this approach later in this debate.
On the specific issues raised by the DPRRC, I hope I can reassure this Committee by confirming that I have written to the DPRRC to commit that the Government will bring forward amendments to the Bill specifying clearly that in the first instance regulatory responsibility will be exercised by Secretaries of State.
In addition, to address concerns raised during debates on the Bill about the independence of the new regulator, we have proposed a formal review point. The Government have committed to review and consult three years after the regulator is fully operational on whether it should be moved to a more independent footing. To this end, we propose to retain the power in the Bill to transfer regulation to another regulator in the future. It is of course not unprecedented for a regulator to be established through secondary legislation, and that has become quite common practice. Indeed, the current regulator, the HCPC, was itself originally established through an Order in Council.
I now turn to the key issue of why the Government believe that reform of social work regulation is vital. Much has been said here today and throughout the passage of this Bill about the excellent work that social workers do, often in very challenging circumstances. We all know that social work is a complex and challenging profession which has the power to transform lives. Every day social workers deliver critical services for the state, safeguarding vulnerable children and adults with care and support needs. They deal with the most complex and fraught situations that require the highest levels of skill, knowledge and capability.
In recent years a series of high-profile incidents have seen the profession face higher levels of scrutiny and challenge. Through Ofsted inspections and from the serious cases we all know about, such as those involving Daniel Pelka, Hamzah Khan and the children exploited so terribly in Rotherham, we know that excellent social work practice is not found consistently across the country. Although such cases are always complicated, the quality of the workforce and its professional and leadership capability have been common factors in all. That is why the Government have embarked on an ambitious programme of reform, aimed principally
at improving the standards of practice and the systems that support all social workers, as well as improving the standing of social work as a profession.
I assure noble Lords that the Government have taken action to support the profession in recent years. To bring vital social work expertise to the heart of government, we appointed two chief social workers. I know that many noble Lords present today have had the opportunity of meeting them on a number of occasions and have been very favourably impressed. Through the chief social workers, the Government have published statements setting out for the first time the essential knowledge and skills that all social workers need.
We have also made significant investment in the training of our new social workers, investing over £700 million in both traditional routes into the profession and fast-track alternatives since 2010. We have funded four new teaching partnerships and will be supporting more, bringing employers and educational providers together. They are developing high-quality training provision and supporting continuous professional development. To support the critical transition from training into practice, we have established the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment.
We are also offering our support to develop practice-focused career pathways. We will achieve this through our proposals to assess and accredit child and family social workers; supporting the development of leadership roles in both adults’ and children’s services; and supporting specialist areas such as in mental health social work practice. This will reap a dual dividend: supporting ever-better standards of practice but also, crucially, giving social workers clear progression routes which can keep them in the profession and in practice.
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I want to take this opportunity to address the question of social worker retention, an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the Education Select Committee. This is of course a complex problem and needs a multifaceted solution.
The quality of the environment in which social workers operate can be a key determining factor in recruitment and retention. This includes: the quality of supervision and wider leadership and management; opportunities for development and career progression; workloads and levels of bureaucracy; and organisational culture. Clearly there is a responsibility on employers here, but government action is also contributing to tackling these issues.
Much of our wider reform agenda seeks to address a number of these points head on. For example, we have evidence that we are attracting people into social work through Frontline and Step Up who would not have considered it a career option previously. Efforts to improve initial training through fast-track programmes and teaching partnerships will lead to more-confident, better-trained social workers who are better able to cope with the demands of front-line practice. In children’s services we are supporting better leadership and supervision. Our ambition is that all local authorities will have an accredited practice leader in post by 2020, and we are establishing programmes to develop practice
leaders and supervisors. Learning from the innovation programme, our local authority partners in practice and the What Works centre should all help drive improvements through the system.
Alongside this, regulatory reform can make a contribution. Getting initial education standards right will mean newly qualified social workers have the skills they need to cope with the challenges of the role. The establishment of post-qualification professional standards, with the option to accredit those with this expertise, will mean that social workers have clear career pathways and will help to enhance their status. This can only help retention. I hope noble Lords will agree that this demonstrates a clear commitment from Government to support improvements in the profession.
The reforms that I have just set out depend on a regulatory system sharply focused on high professional standards which recognises that standards need to improve and good practice should be promoted. However, we will not be able to achieve the full benefits of these reforms if we do not also have a high level of ambition for the social work profession. It is our contention that the two are complementary, and both are required if we are to create the world-class social care system, with world-class social workers, that we all aspire to. We believe the current approach to regulating the social work profession cannot deliver this.
The current regulator, the HCPC, oversees a model of regulation that is designed to maintain minimum standards of public safety and initial education across a wide range of diverse professions. This approach works well for most of these professions, many of which have strong professional bodies and have been formally regulated for many years. In terms of the current model of regulation, it surely cannot be right that, as Sir Martin Narey stated in his report:
“So we have a situation where employers cannot be confident about the abilities of newly qualified social workers, in part because of uncertainty about their raw calibre … there are universities and colleges where entry and academic standards appear to be too low and where the preparation of students for children’s social work is too often inadequate … HCPC argue that the standards set out clear expectations of a social worker’s knowledge and abilities when they start practising. But most of the standards … are general in nature and could be describing almost any professional and, in many instances, non-professional occupation ... the core document, the Standards of Proficiency, does not remotely provide adequate guidance to universities about the skills and professional knowledge required of graduate social workers”.
Professor David Croisdale-Appleby, in his review on social work education, stated that HCPC standards of education and training and its standards of conduct, performance and ethics are set at a low level of quite generic expectation that would be covered by any higher education institute’s own governance regime.