Oral evidence: Social work reform, HC 690Wednesday 4 May 2016
Oral evidence, 4 May 2016.
Witness
Edward Timpson MP, Minister for Children and Families, Department for Education gave evidence.
Chair
We are going straight over to the Minister. We have an hour but we have more questions. The thrust there is that we have to be swifter in asking and pithy in response. Welcome, Ed, Minister responsible for this fascinating area of policy. It is good to see you here today.
Edward Timpson
Thank you.
Chair
We have already asked this question of others but your take will be interesting. Why is reform needed?
Edward Timpson
One thing that we can all agree—whoever is giving evidence to this Committee, whether written or oral—is that we do not have a system we can all sit back and say, “We are content to leave it as it is”. That is why there has been a series of efforts by a succession of Governments to try to inject reform into how we create consistently high-quality social work right across the country.
Chair
When will your full children’s social care strategy be published?
Edward Timpson
We are looking to do that as soon as possible. As you will know, Chairman, it has been an interesting time for Government with a whole host of different purdahs coming closely into view. We are trying to work around those. What we do want to do is build on the speech of the Prime Minister on life chances in January—the paper that we published there around our vision for Children’s Services—and give a much more fleshed out version of how we intend to do that, both through the social work reform agenda, but particularly through the three pillars that were identified as being crucial in achieving that: people—having great people in social work and keeping them in there—and the practice system, which you have heard a lot about, but also the Government’s accountability.
Chair
Just on this theme, obviously we would be reporting shortly as a result of this final evidence session and so on. We would hope that we will be considered as a contributor to the strategy.
Edward Timpson
Yes, absolutely. As I have done in other Committee reports, I look forward to seeing what you have to say and taking your view seriously.
Chair
What mechanisms will you have in place to assess the success of these reforms because that is obviously an important element?
Edward Timpson
One of the best ways of assessing it is looking back through what it is we have identified is falling short of where it needs to be. How we know that. So that may be through Ofsted inspections. It may be through the interaction we have directly ourselves as a Department but also through the work, for instance, of the chief social worker and others like the Children’s Commissioner who are feeding directly back into the Department what is happening on the ground. Through the innovation programme we are learning a huge amount and assessing the impact of those on the system in understanding what an excellent practice system looks like.
Chair
Catherine is going to ask a few questions about basically your relationship with the Department of Health.
Catherine McKinnell
Why is the Department for Education pursuing what is perceived to be a different reform agenda to the Department of Health?
Edward Timpson
We are not pursuing a different reform agenda. We both commissioned reports around social work training by David Croisdale-Appleby from the Department of Health and Sir Martin Narey from the Department for Education to nail down what it was that was leading to an inconsistent level of practice that was borne out in so many Ofsted inspections, and also unfortunately in many serious case reviews across the social workforce. We have used those two reports, as well as the important work of the Social Work Reform Board and the Munro review, to create a system that is unashamedly focused on delivering high-quality practice. That starts at the training level and making sure that we are, first, attracting as wide a range of people into the profession as we possibly can. Then having real rigour in what that training involves, both at the initial training point but also beyond the initial qualification and into the practice itself. I remember when I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group that looked after children and care leavers; we looked at the motivations for young people coming into social work as well as those who were career changes. But also what was selling them short in their initial training, whether that be an adult social worker or children’s social worker. Predominantly it was around their inability to access good practice placements where they could learn for themselves, face to face, what it was like to be in a social care situation, whether that be in a family setting, where there is a domestic violence incident, for example, or whether it be in the adult social care arena. What we are doing as Departments—we have built on those two reports—is an initial generic approach to social work because there is always going to be a cross-fertilisation of skills that are required in both edges of the profession. But then looking at, as all the reviews previously have indicated we should do, how we then draw in a greater level of specialism so that those who do end up in children’s social work have the requisite knowledge and skills that they need to do a great job, not just in theory but in practice as well. That is where many of those students that I spoke to four or five years ago felt the system was lacking.
Catherine McKinnell
But some of the witnesses that we have heard from during our inquiry are concerned that the profession is becoming fragmented between adult social work and children social work and do not always feel there is leadership across both strands. Obviously the two are completely interlinked as well. What are you doing to make sure that both in reality and perception that the two strands are working together and pulling in the same direction?
Edward Timpson
The first thing I could do is give assurance there is absolutely no intention of trying to split the profession. What we are trying to do is doing what happens in a lot of other areas of public service, for instance, with nurses and midwives. Although they work within the same health arena, they both end up doing three years of specialist training in order to ensure that they can do their specific role within that arena. What we are wanting to achieve is a social workforce that has those basic building blocks in place to be a social worker, but then is much more able to align individuals within that social workforce to the specific skills that we need them to perform. This is not a new proposition. It happens in many other parts of public service and we are making sure that we do it in a way that is joined up. So the new regulatory body is for the whole of social work. When we have developed teaching partnerships it has been done across both the Department of Health and Department for Education. As we heard earlier, both chief social workers under the same office are in a constant conversation around developing and setting an accreditation system or they may well want to look at how we ensure that best interests are being properly implemented.
Catherine McKinnell
One of the other concerns is that, where the child is in need of intervention, often the family do as well. To go down separate paths is a bit illogical for the practice of some social workers. The appointment of two separate chief social workers came as a surprise to some in the profession and is also a source of that concern that it may become increasingly fragmented and disjointed rather than one coherent voice for social workers. What are you doing to ensure that is not a divisive force? It would be helpful to understand why the decision was taken not to appoint one chief social worker, why two separate chief social workers have been created?
Edward Timpson
Just to pick up on your last question. This was a recommendation that came out of the Munro review, which we, in accepting the report—
Catherine McKinnell
A recommendation for one social worker or two?
Edward Timpson
This was for a chief social worker. We accepted all but one of the Munro recommendations so we have taken on board a huge amount of the work that Eileen Munro did in that report. We did initially recruit for a single chief social worker but what became apparent through that exercise was the level of divergence as well as convergence there was in recruiting someone who would be able to perform that role across the whole spectrum of the profession. It became apparent, having tried extensively to recruit on that initial basis, that there was a stronger prospect of having high-quality representation through having the two chief social workers under one office, albeit that of course they are working simultaneously as they carry out their specific tasks.
Chair
Thank you, Catherine. Lucy, a few questions on retention, please.
Lucy Frazer
The vacancies in social workers for children have increased by 27% in the last year. They are now at a national average of 17%. We know you are putting money into people going into the profession, which is obviously great, but we need those in to stay in the profession. What is the Government doing to ensure the retention of those people?
Edward Timpson
First of all, it is fair to say this is a long-standing problem in the social work profession. The latest research shows that a social worker’s career lasts about eight years before they leave, on average, whereas a nurse is 15 years and a doctor is 20 years plus. There is a clear retention problem that does need to be addressed. However, within that there is huge variation across the country, in terms of the performance of local areas, as to how they manage to achieve different levels of retention of their social workforce. For instance, in Yorkshire and Humber I think the vacancy rate is only around 7%, whereas in outer London there are some areas where it is as high as 28% or 29%. We need to understand better what it is that is happening in Yorkshire and Humber that is not happening in parts of London. We know also what the triggers are and why people leave the profession. One of those is of course they feel unprepared for the early years of their time as a social worker. I can refer to cases that I used to do on behalf of local authorities and parents when I was practising at the bar where very inexperienced social workers were giving evidence in court and it was clearly a case well beyond their capability. Burn-out can result in them leaving the profession. Similarly, we also know that there has been the lack of a career pathway for social workers. One of the frustrations for many of us has been the movement of experienced social workers out of frontline social work into management because there is no clear way for them to remain in practice. This is one of the things we are trying to address through having frontline practice, practice supervisor and practice leaders, a clear practice career pathway that they can see that allows them to develop themselves as a social worker but remain with what I hope brought them into social work into the first place—working directly with children and families. If they lose that, then they can drift away. There is more that we can do around retention. What we have seen with the new fast-track routes into social work, although it is early days, is that they are proving to be a better prospect for retention of those individuals. For example, for Step Up to Social Work 83% or 84% are still working within social work as social workers three years after completing their course. There are signs that some of the other routes that we are opening up are improving retention but of course there is still more than we need to do.
Lucy Frazer
You have highlighted a number of problems. Of course you need to address the problems and until you know what the problems are you cannot address them, so you are absolutely right to highlight the problems. You have highlighted one, which is career progression. There must be other strategies to keep people in the profession that are about their time in the job. What strategies does the Government have in relation to other things to ensure people stay in the job?
Edward Timpson
The new routes into social work are attracting different people with different skills and potentially more stickability, as I have just tried to illustrate through the Step Up programme. Close to 1,000 social workers have gone through that. That is a significant proportion of the around 30,000 children and family social workers that are currently registered. We are seeing a greater number who are getting that assessed and supported year in employment. That is hugely valuable because that helps them embed good, strong practice much earlier. They feel better supported, their casework loads are often protected and that means they have durability beyond that first year that others potentially do not. Through Partners in Practice, where we are working with some of the best local authorities, we are trying to understand—as I illustrated earlier in Yorkshire and Humber—why it is that they have such high levels of retention. The data that we now have, which we have not had before and I think is often the best indicator of where success lies in this area, is not only around retention but also around sickness and absence rates. If you have a high sickness/absence rate that suggests a workforce that is not motivated, that does not have a clear direction and that is floundering, and of course we know for children and families in particular a churn of social workers is the worst possible outcome because they lose that consistency of relationship. We need to learn more from those areas where they do it well in Partners in Practice and use the work centre that we are bringing on-stream to assist those local authorities who are not doing so well on retention to understand how they can do better in the future.
Lucy Frazer
You mentioned casework and caseload. A Community Care investigation found that around half of councils do not set a safe caseload benchmark and of those that did, 90% were unable to say whether their social workers were exceeding the benchmark. Is it Government’s role to change this and if it is, how can it do it?
Edward Timpson
We set clear guidelines on what is a manageable casework load, whether that is for a social worker or that is for an independent reviewing officer. In terms of how that is administered it is a matter for Ofsted when they inspect children’s services to look at that issue, see what impact it is having on their ability to provide high-quality social work and raise it as an alarm bell that needs to be addressed in any improvement that is required in that local authority, or potentially some intervention that the Government then has to institute. What we need to do is not only decipher where it is going wrong but try to understand where it is going right and really understand what works. The danger of having a very arbitrary casework load number and saying no social worker should ever have more than five cases is of course we know no two cases are the same. Some cases can be extremely complicated and take up an enormous amount of time—where there is a huge sibling group, very difficult child sexual exploitation issues or a baby that has been born addicted to drugs, which means a lot of involvement with health professionals—and there are some cases which, comparatively, although very serious, are more straightforward for the social worker to manage. We need to be a little careful about Government from the centre saying, “That is the minimum or the maximum you can have”. What we do is set the guidelines, then leave Ofsted to look at that more closely when they do their inspection.
Lucy Frazer
How do we encourage experienced social workers to return to social work?
Edward Timpson
There are a number of ways. First of all, you need to make it attractive to them. We have to work on the basis that they have left either because their family circumstances may have changed, they have found something that they thought at first glance was a more attractive offer, or potentially it is because they have decided that social work was no longer for them. We need to use the career change route through Step Up and through recruitment at local level, and also the work that is being done on social work reform around the career pathway that is being created, as a magnetic pull to bring them back into the profession. That experience is invaluable and once you lose it you do not get it back again. As a Government, we have invested since 2010 over £700 million in social work training. The last thing we want to do is see that all disappear just a few years down the line, which is why we are being rigorous about how we create a practice system that, for people who have left, would now look far more attractive to them than it did when they decided to move on to pastures new.
Ian Mearns
In January the Department announced £100 million extra funding for Frontline and Step Up to Social Work. That was two months before the independent evaluation of Frontline was published. Was the Department aware of the independent evaluation’s findings before the publication?
Edward Timpson
There had already been some evaluation that had taken place of Frontline. That was the latest one that had been published. There was already some emerging evidence and we did, as we have to, a full Government procurement process. There were other entries into that potential contract to deliver a fast-track programme. As a consequence of having gone through that procurement process, Frontline won that contract. Hence they are now going to move on to the next phase, the next cohort of students going through the Frontline programme. I have had the enjoyment—if I can put it that way, Chair—of going to see a fairly brutal assessment process for potential Frontline candidates up in north London a year or two ago and it reminded me rather too much of the time when I was going through a similar process to become a barrister. It was clear to me that the standard of entries was exceptional. What we do know is that for the 100 places that were available there were over 2,800 applicants. This is a really exciting and evolving route into social work. What I think is really important, Mr Mearns, is that it should not be the only route and it should never be the only route. The vast majority of people who become social workers will still be coming through the more traditional route. That is why we need to also focus on them and their quality at the same time as developing these fast-track programmes.
Ian Mearns
In other evidence we have seen first and foremost that Frontline is seen on the face of it to cost twice as much as other postgraduate courses and three times as much as undergraduate courses. Additionally, we have also heard in evidence that there was a concern over the range of diversity of successful applicants for Frontline compared to the populations they would seek to serve once they qualify. Any comment on that?
Edward Timpson
I know you heard evidence from Josh MacAlister from Frontline about the overall cost of the Frontline programme, explaining that once you take into account the value for money and the other economic factors associated with Frontline it works out as 9% more than the traditional route. Of course, that is what we know at this stage. That may well change over time as we see whether those Frontline students are the ones that end up where we want them to be, which is moving up through the career pathway and remaining in the profession. On the point about diversity, Josh MacAlister acknowledged that is something they need to look at as they move the programme into the next phase. What was interesting was they attracted proportionately more men than had been in the other routes. In some ways that is an encouraging sign but it is one that we need to look carefully at and Frontline will need to look carefully at as it progresses.
Ian Mearns
In terms of Josh MacAlister’s evidence, I could say, “He would say that, wouldn’t he?” Have you tested what he has said? Have you double checked from the Department’s perspective what he has said in evidence to make sure it is absolutely valid?
Edward Timpson
We have. We have done that not only with Frontline but also with Step Up and with the other routes because as a Government we have a responsibility to make sure that for the taxpayer, we are getting value for money too. There has been a full and rigorous assessment of that. I am obviously happy to share it with the Committee if that would be helpful.
Ian Mearns
I would welcome that. Thank you very much indeed. The Frontline evaluation rated positively social work trainees from all three routes: fast-track, postgraduate and undergraduate. Given the cost evaluation found that Frontline was more expensive, how can you assure us that fast-track schemes represent value for money?
Edward Timpson
Two ways. First of all, they are under a contract so they have to fulfil that contract. That contract has a lifespan and we will be reviewing any potential renewal in the future. What we will see is a gathering evidence base of the impact that these fast-track routes are having on the profession. As the numbers become more dominant as an overall percentage of the workforce, that will become clearer. What we have already seen through Step Up, which bears many of the hallmarks of Frontline, is, as I said earlier, that durability of the students going through. Also we know from the qualitative feedback the huge value that they are given by their employers, the way that they are changing some of the culture within their own organisations and also helping raise the status. That is something that we have not touched on but it is vital in all of this. Part of what we are doing through the social work reform agenda is saying, “Social work really matters”. We need to have it in the same bracket as our doctors and nurses and our teachers. It should be seen in that way. Just because most people do not get to see a social worker doing their job does not mean that it is not something that should be as valued as those that they do. That is part of, as I say, what we are trying to achieve through this reform agenda.
Ian Mearns
Frontline focuses on child protection rather than a whole family emphasis. How can we be sure it delivers well-rounded social workers? Given that emphasis, something else that occurs to me is that if we are getting more and more specialised social workers and then they drop out but we want them to return, would the Department be thinking about training schemes that would help a previously trained child social worker to go into adult work or vice versa?
Edward Timpson
It is a good point. It is why when the new social work degree was looked at by Sir Martin Narey and when Frontline was developed, both of them began and will continue to begin with a generic qualification across the whole of social work. We do not want to discourage people from moving around the profession because ultimately that keeps their experience within what is a very important sector. What we also need to do, in the same token, is not make it become so generic that we lack that real specialism that we need. We know, for example, that the needs of children coming into care are getting ever more complex and we need a workforce who have the skills in order to respond to that. That is at the heart of what the new practice system is that we are creating.
Stephen Timms
Can I just pursue a little bit further what you were just saying? For initial social work education, as you say, there will be a degree. The first year will be common irrespective of whether you want to be a children or an adult social worker. Do you envisage specialist children’s social work degrees or are we talking about generic degrees where in year 2 and 3 you choose what you are going to become?
Edward Timpson
What we have is a social work degree that, as you rightly identify, begins like a lot of degrees in different professions with an overarching, broad knowledge base. Then, as you move through that degree, you can start to choose which of the faculties you are interested in and you want to become more specialised in. I am sure we can all point to our own experience, if we went through the vocational route or the university route, of doing exactly that.
Stephen Timms
Sir Martin Narey recommended something different to that. He recommended specialist children’s social work degrees with one year that was common, irrespective of where you wanted to end up. Do you support that recommendation?
Edward Timpson
We do support the recommendation to have a generic start to a degree and then that opportunity to specialise thereafter.
Stephen Timms
Do you support the recommendation for a specialist children’s social work degree?
Edward Timpson
It is not a specialist children’s social work degree inasmuch as you have that generic start and then you move through, in the same way that I might have a degree in political sciences, dare I say—you might have one too, I do not know. I am sure you did something far more important and interesting than that. What it did allow is, within the second and third year, some specialism within it, such as Russian politics.
Stephen Timms
You have rejected that particular recommendation?
Edward Timpson
No, we have not rejected the recommendation—
Stephen Timms
I think you have.
Edward Timpson
—to move from a first year of a generic degree to an ability to specialise thereafter. We might be getting down to the semantics of what we call it but for all intents and purposes it is a social work degree where that person has decided in the subsequent years, past the first year of generic training, to move into a specialised area.
Stephen Timms
Let me just read you the recommendation from Sir Martin Narey’s report. “Universities should be encouraged to develop degrees for those intending to work in children’s social work.” That is different, I think, from what you have described. I just wanted to get that on the record. Can I ask what you think is the right balance between fast-track and traditional routes?
Edward Timpson
As I said in a previous answer, I fully expect that the vast majority of social workers will still go through the traditional route. We do not know yet what the level of uptake for fast-track will be in the future. It is in its very early stages. Through Frontline we had a first cohort of 100 and a second cohort of 180. We are moving to subsequent cohorts. We are also looking within that at some other routes that people can take when they move into post-qualification, particularly for instance around permanence, looking at that very important area of children’s social care where the decision is made as to what the right permanent option is for that child. It requires some fairly deep knowledge and skills around how to make such a profound decision. What we are doing is this. If we take a tree as an analogy, we start at the trunk with social work and then as it goes on we develop a profession that can branch out in different directions but still has that base at the bottom that they can return to.
Stephen Timms
When you say you would expect the vast majority still to go through the traditional routes, are we talking about 80%?
Edward Timpson
I am afraid I am not going to put any figures on it because we do not know what the demand is going to be in the future. There needs to be flexibility within the system to meet that demand. What we do know is that we have around 30,000 children and family social workers. We do not necessarily have the right mix in order to meet all that demand as we currently know it. We are getting a better understanding of what the workforce is and how we need to develop it with the data that we have started to collect over the last two years but that is an area where we do need to do more. As we move towards devolution deals, combined authorities and other structures at local government, there is a really good opportunity to use that as a way of having a deeper, more granular understanding of the workforce so that decisions about what routes we need them to come in through can be better judged.
Stephen Timms
Sir Martin Narey referred to significant weaknesses in some university courses. The HCPC says when they have asked your Department for the names of programmes with significant weaknesses, they have been told that the Department does not have that information. Can you identify a higher education programme where there are significant weaknesses?
Edward Timpson
We asked Sir Martin Narey to do the report he did on social work training in order for him to identify where he thought there was a good level of HEI offer and where there may be areas where it is falling well short of where it should be. That is information that he has established through that report.
Stephen Timms
Do you know where the weaknesses are?
Edward Timpson
If the Committee is interested in having specific names of specific universities, I do not think Sir Martin Narey is that far away. I am sure he would be happy to comply. What I do know, and I am confident from his report, is that there are weaknesses and they need to be addressed.
Stephen Timms
HCPC should know where they are, shouldn’t it, because of its regulatory role?
Edward Timpson
I do not know what direct activity HCPC have with HEIs. I know that they obviously set the regulatory framework and they assess those courses against it. One of the reasons why we are creating a new social work regulatory body is so that we have a body that is absolutely focused on social work rather than 16 healthcare professions that sit within HCPC, including art therapy and podiatry, which do not necessarily have the real focus, as I say, on social work.
Stephen Timms
Is your advice to HCPC that they need to ask Sir Martin where these courses or weaknesses are?
Edward Timpson
Knowing that Sir Martin Narey has done the report and come to those conclusions, then—
Stephen Timms
They should ask him?
Edward Timpson
I would suggest that that would be a helpful line of inquiry.
Stephen Timms
Most social work research in the UK is carried out by university departments. Some of them feel that the fast-track routes could be a threat to them and therefore to research. Are you worried about the future viability of research? Are you doing anything about it?
Edward Timpson
The role of research is really important and it would be wrong to suggest that you can continue to train and develop a social workforce without feeding in that research. It is a vital component of creating the right recipe for success. I know with Frontline they have decided on a less traditional model—which has, it has to be said, passed the HCPC test inasmuch as they have signed it off—where, rather than them going to the academic research, the academic research is coming to them. They have built it into their programme. That is important. I would suspect that if they had not done that it would have been more difficult for HCPC to allow them to continue in the way that they are.
Stephen Timms
Are you worried about the future viability of research?
Edward Timpson
No, I am not worried because what we have established is where we know HEIs really add value, and also with the What Works Centre we are going to have a comprehensive countrywide research base on what makes great social work. The research coming from universities is going to be at the core of that through it being an academic-led centre.
Stephen Timms
Final question from me. How likely do you think it is the Department of Health is going to stop funding the social work bursary?
Edward Timpson
No decisions have been made about that. As you will know, there has been a consultation in relation to the nurse bursaries. In doing that, at the same time it was right for us to review what the social work bursary was doing. Was it providing value for money? It is a significant sum, about £18 million a year. We are looking carefully at that. There will be the usual period of consultation as to how best to fund placements in social work in the future. There have been absolutely no decisions made at this point. If there is any speculation, I am afraid it is founded on speculation.
Chair
That you very much. One or two of your answers to some of Stephen’s questions may well provoke a flurry of correspondence to this Committee. I can sense that coming. Have you any plans to look at CPD funding? We have heard from Isabelle already of the importance of CPD.
Edward Timpson
The first thing to establish is that CPD is compulsory. In order for a social worker to remain registered they have to continually update their CPD through HCPC, who then, I think, do a random 2.5% trawl through all social workers every two years. We know it is there and it is a necessary and very valued part of making sure that those in social work remain on the top of their game and up to date.
Chair
Does that mean funding will be at least protected, or possibly increased?
Edward Timpson
The funding for CPD does not flow from central Government in its entirety. It is for employers to decide how they want to enable that to happen, and of course—we may come on to this—having a professional body to help facilitate CPD through membership is also a good way of having a virtuous circle of ensuring CPD can happen. What we are doing through teaching partnerships, through the What Works Centre and through Partners in Practice is providing a platform for CPD to be more accessible and of a higher quality. One of the last things we want is social workers, two days before they need to comply with their CPD to get their re-registrations, to go online and do a quick multiple-choice test. We want it to be meaningful.
Chair
We have heard that Assessed and Supported Year is popular. Are you thinking of making that mandatory?
Edward Timpson
It has been very successful. We have funded it to the tune of £18 million over the last five years, so we have heavily invested in it. Over 10,000 social workers have now been through that assessed and supported year in employment. We have not made any decisions about whether to mandate or not. It is an area where we would be interested to hear the Committee’s views, having considered all the evidence. I do agree with the chief social worker that what we do not want to do is mandate something that is not very good and is not consistent in quality. Although ASYE has grown exponentially over the last five years, it is still the minority of social workers who have been through that assisted and supported year in employment. In terms of the evidence base, I would want to have as much confidence as I possibly can before making a decision to say this is something that every social worker has to do. This may be an area where evolution will win the day in that it becomes a prerequisite for many employers that their potential employee has been through the ASYE. It is trying to judge whether it would be better to let it happen through that process or not.
Chair
What we have heard also is that some social workers consider the accreditation and assessment system to be punitive rather than supportive. Do you have any thoughts on why that should be or what could be done to make it seem and be more effective at providing support to social workers?
Edward Timpson
I can understand, at first glance, that having an assessment and accreditation system put into place could inject a level of fear as to whether that means I am going to pass those tests and be able to remain in practice. I completely understand that initial reaction but what we have seen in the 900-plus social workers that have been through the piloting phase of the assessment and accreditation process is almost a realisation that, first of all, they were more confident than they thought. Also they valued the opportunity to be able to reflect back on their own practice. That is something I have heard again and again from social workers. They often do not get the opportunity to do so. It is also important to note that if you do not get through the first time, you will get another opportunity through being supported to enable yourself to meet the requisite standard. Having said all of that, I am not going to be half-baked in my determination to see high professional standards right across social work. The reason why we have spent a long time testing this out with a large proportion of social workers is to make sure we get this right, because it could be extremely powerful to make sure we do get that high consistency of standards right across the country.
Chair
Thanks very much. That takes me on the College of Social Work. Do you have any thoughts or plans as to how you might intervene or at least stimulate its replacement with something else? Do you buy the idea that the Association is the natural replacement and should develop into the role?
Edward Timpson
We worked hard to help the college grow and become sustainable. You heard earlier about £8.2 million we provided the college beyond the years we said we were initially going to enable them to become a self-sustaining professional body. I know Dave Hill and Annie Hudson, who you heard evidence from, really did do their best to raise the level of membership that was required to enable that to happen but unfortunately it did not and there had to come a point where the Government could not keep putting millions of pounds into what was effectively an insolvent body. The college then had to make a decision as to whether it was going to try to continue on its own.
Chair
Do you think that we should be sketching out what a new body might look like or are you confident that something will emerge?
Edward Timpson
In some ways Government has already tried to do that. “Let us follow the recommendation of Munro and help establish a College of Social Work and then let the membership start to grow.” That has not worked and it is regrettable but that does not mean that there should not be a strong professional body representing social workers. That is what I want to see. Having tried it from the top down, my strong preference is from the bottom up, from those grassroots. We have the British Association of Social Workers. We know that they have a growing membership. That could well be the best groundswell of a professional body for social work. It would be wrong for me to impose another model through Government. What we need to do is let them make that decision. I am very supportive of there being a strong professional body for social work, not just so that they can make sure that the reforms that we are bringing in really do match their experience on the ground and help enhance it but also, going back to the point about raising the status of the profession, they need a strong voice. I hope we get that sooner rather than later.
Ian Mearns
We have previously had a General Social Care Council and then since 2012 we have had Health and Care Professions Council. The Vision for Change document says there will be a new regulatory body by 2020. Why does social work need yet another change in regulator?
Edward Timpson
We would not be doing this if we thought we were doing social work the profession justice through the current regulatory framework. This is not a tinkering decision, this is a very profound decision of saying that if we are going to create the practice system that is going to be at the heart of high-quality social work, then we need to have a regulatory body that is designed to challenge and support that profession in a way that is much more focused on them rather than in a wider group of quite a mixture of different health and social care professions. Although there are some who would say, as you suggest, Mr Mearns, we have gone back to where we were, this is a regulatory body that will have a wider remit, and that will be looking at post-qualification, at accreditation and potentially at CPD. That is going to help form a better structure for the career pathways that we are seeking to create through the frontline practice, practice supervisor and practice leaders.
Ian Mearns
We have been told by others that the Department’s vision and the details of the new regulator are currently still quite vague. Can you tell us exactly what it will be responsible for and how it will be different from the Health and Care Professions Council?
Edward Timpson
It is fair to say we still have work to do to establish the deeper, granular details of exactly what the regulatory body will be tasked with. What we are clear about is that it will be specific to social work, and not just children’s social work. It will be dealing predominantly with standards, making sure, through the knowledge and skills and accreditation and assessment system, that we are creating a consistently high level of social work, whichever route the social workers use to come into the profession, and, as I say, also looking potentially at the role of CPD. That is where we need some further discussion with the other bodies that we have spoken about to make sure we do get that remit right.
Ian Mearns
The closure of the General Social Care Council and the transfer to the Health and Care Professions Council cost over £19 million. Who is going to pay for this transition?
Edward Timpson
We are meeting the set-up costs of the new body within Government. It is something that we have been working on, mindful of spending reviews and the other constraints on public finances. This is something we think is so important that we have earmarked the necessary expenditure within Government in order to meet it.
Ian Mearns
The important question. The Health and Care Professions Council was established in 2012, what was the main thing that meant that was set up incorrectly in the first place and it was not as robust as you would have liked it?
Edward Timpson
What we have come to is the clear view that there needs to be a regulatory body that is focused purely on social work. Being in that wider regulatory body meant that the elements of the system that we know needed to change would not necessarily have been able to change without the creation of this new body. It is not to say that HCPC were not doing their job properly—they were—but in the context of what we are trying to do with the social work reform agenda, they would not have been able to do it in the form of the regulatory framework that was set up within HCPC.
Chair
We must move on to Catherine now.
Catherine McKinnell
What evidence do you have that removing children’s services from local authority control will result in better outcomes for children and families?
Edward Timpson
I am one of those who subscribes to the “what works” view of the world, and also understanding what does not work. We have a very mixed picture in children’s services where less than 30% of the 152 local authorities are good or outstanding. Over 70% require improvement or are inadequate. We have over 25 who are in intervention with the Department. We have moved 35 out of intervention. That has been a good outcome from the support that we are able to offer as a Department. What we do know is that there are some areas where there is systemic failure and persistent failure, which cannot be tolerated, and where every opportunity has been given for that organisation to turn that service around. It is only right in those circumstances we look at other ways of delivering the service that would improve outcomes for children and drive up consistent quality in that organisation. We have seen this happen in education before. In Hackney during the early 2000s, the Hackney Education Trust was set up. It ran education and schools in Hackney for close to 10 years, turned them around, and then returned them back to the local authority. Generally they are still very well-performing schools. It can have a very positive impact, albeit that was education. What we did was commission a number of reports, independent reports, into what to do with these persistent, systemically failing local authorities. The first of those was Doncaster, which resulted in setting up the Doncaster Children’s Trust. We have already seen in the first year a significant improvement from what was the very, very low end of inadequate to a good adoption service. Many other elements of that service have gone from inadequate to “requires improvement”. Also, importantly, there has been a huge culture change within that organisation. Social workers feel more supported, more valued, and feel ownership of the service they are running. There is emerging evidence from Doncaster and now in Slough, from the initial independent reports that have been done there, that it is having a positive impact. There are many different models that can be tried. I know we are short of time, Chair, but Hampshire run Isle of Wight and have turned Isle of Wight around. Richmond set up a community interest company, Achieving for Children, who took over the running of Kingston, which went from inadequate to good in a few short years. The tri-borough has come together and runs a single service. Two of those councils have become outstanding. There are examples of how, if we deliver services differently—I am also keen for other voluntary organisations to come in and help local authorities—we can improve services. As I say, for me it is about what works. If that works, we should do it.
Catherine McKinnell
I think people are interested in seeing the evidence base. Obviously the report that was undertaken into children’s services outside the local authorities was completed in 2013 but the results have been delayed in terms of their publication. Could you give us an idea of what the main conclusions are of the report?
Edward Timpson
Could you just be a bit more specific about the report you are referring to?
Catherine McKinnell
The report into the FOI requests that have ultimately resulted in the Department deciding that it will publish it but not until summer 2016, it is the Department for Education’s own commissioned study.
Edward Timpson
Yes, I think this is the LaingBuisson report
Catherine McKinnell
That was concluded in March 2014?
Edward Timpson
Yes, that will be published, as indicated, as soon as purdah is over. So I am not at liberty to start divulging its contents until then, but the reason it is being published is because it is a helpful paper. It is trying to flesh out some of the ways that we can deliver children’s services that are more innovative. It is why we set up the innovation programmes so we can test these ideas out, but in a risk-controlled environment. This is all about how can we give children who need protection, who are vulnerable, a greater prospect of receiving the services that they need. But then they are being sustained so that they end up with the outcomes that we know that they are capable of.
Chair
I have two quick questions. Ofsted has a reputation for being focused on education and some would say even more focused on secondary education within that. What reforms, if any, do you think are necessary to help Ofsted help the world of social work?
Edward Timpson
I recently went to the Ofsted HQ, just opposite Holborn Station—I don’t know if you have been there, Chairman, but it is well worth a visit—and spent some time with the new Head of Social Care within Ofsted, Eleanor Schooling, who I think is a real breath of fresh air in driving social care at the heart of Ofsted’s work, whether that be through children’s services or the new joint inspections that we are doing on special educational needs.
Chair
One last question. Which of your reforms, if any, will require primary legislation?
Edward Timpson
A social work body will require primary legislation.
Chair
Okay, thank you very much for answering our questions. We are at the end, although we did skim a few. Thank you very much. Oral evidence: Social work reform, HC 690 2