WIREDGOV

Last year, the GSCC had urged employers not to cut training budgets for social workers in their efficiency drives. Work load relief to enable social workers to undertake training, lack of ring-fenced funding and availability of practice educators and assessors were all cited as obstacles in the take up of PQ training in the report. A robust and sustainable Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) - employer partnership, as identified by the Social Work Task Force, is integral to ongoing training of social workers.

Other findings in the report, which is to be launched at GSCC’s Parliamentary Reception tonight, include:

• enrolment on social work degrees for the academic year 2008-09 is 5,763, a slight increase from last year’s final figure of 5,452
• the intake from non white ethnic groups, at 19 per cent, is significantly above the national population average of 7.9 per cent but referral rates remain much higher for black and ethnic minority groups and students with disabilities have a higher deferral, referral and withdrawal rate
• concerns remain that there are not sufficient number of men in the profession and at 13.6 per cent, male enrolments reflect a very small rise (0.6 per cent); there is a continued predominance of females entering social work training
• mature students continue to feature prominently, with students over the age of 25 accounting for 61 per cent of the total intake
• employment based routes have the highest pass rates (83 per cent) and college based undergraduate courses the lowest pass rate (54.5 per cent) and highest referral, withdrawal and failure rates. This is in line with the research the GSCC published on ‘Grow Your Own’ schemes in 2009
• a total of 10,951 students have achieved the qualification since the start of the social work degree in 2003.  This reflects an overall pass rate of 80.9 per cent; a failure rate of 2-3 per cent and withdrawal rate of 17 per cent.
• the pass rate for post qualifying (PQ) courses in 2007-08 was over 83 per cent
• women make up 80 per cent of those enrolled on PQ courses and 77 per cent of GSCC registrants

More HEIs met the required standards in 2008-2009. However, the GSCC still has concerns about the quality of social work degree and post-qualifying programmes and is therefore continuing to strengthen its approach to monitoring universities. This work, which began in 2008, includes reviewing and modernising the annual monitoring methodology, which is based on standards set in 2002.

Moira Gibb, Chair of the Social Work Task Force, said “I am pleased that the GSCC have begun to take action quickly on the Social Work Taskforce recommendation to improve the standard of training for social workers.”

GSCC Chair Rosie Varley said: “The findings of the Raising Standards report are a clear indication that whilst there has been an improvement in HEI performances there is still some way to go. We are strengthening our approach to inspecting HEIs that run social work degree and post-qualifying programmes to make it more rigorous and robust.

However, completing the initial degree and becoming a registered social worker is just the beginning; continuing learning is an important hallmark of a professional which is only possible with the commitment of employers. We support the recommendations of the Task Force in that continued professional development needs to be properly supported and valued in all places and organisations.

We are committed to increasing public confidence and protection through having better, more rigorous, but fair regulatory systems, driven first and foremost by the needs of people who use services.”