Children: Social Services

Question

Through our professional development programmes, the department supports leaders in social work to continue to develop the knowledge and skills needed to provide the best possible services for children and families. We are investing £5 million in our children and family social work leadership programmes in the 2022/23 financial year, supporting more than 1,000 leaders. This includes a new leadership programme which will begin in Autumn 2022 and will support a leadership career journey, improve the quality of leadership and ensure a pipeline of high-quality leaders.

In 2020, we also launched the Upon Inspiring Leaders Programme to give aspiring and new Directors of Children’s Services the skills and support they need to thrive in this challenging role. To date, 100 participants have benefited from this support.

The department will also closely consider the recommendations related to leadership from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, published on 23 May. We will do this alongside any recommendations from the National Panel Review into the tragic deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, which was published on 26 May. We will also closely consider recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s study into children’s social care placements, which published its final report in March.

The department will set out an implementation strategy by the end of the year that takes account of the three reviews.