The inquiry is likely to pick up on concerns about the impact of time-pressures on social care work, with increasing reports of time not being available to social workers to properly do their work. There is also likely to be a focus on issues such as the causes and impact of high turnover of staff in some social care departments across the country.
Terms of reference
The Committee is inviting written submissions addressing the following questions:
- What is needed from social work, and by social workers in 2019
- The capacity and ability of social workers to:
o Intervene early to help, support and protect children and their families
o Uphold their responsibilities under relevant legislation
o Access appropriate and meaningful professional development and support; and
o Work with other professionals who play a role in the care of children within the education and health systems - How initiatives and reforms to social work training have impacted on the social work workforce
If you are an organisation or an academic, please address the terms of reference in your response. We would be particularly interested in organisations who work with service users feeding their views into their responses.
If you are an individual who has experience of social care, please download and answer our questions specifically for those with lived experience.
In line with the general practice of select committees, the Education Committee resolved on 12 September 2017 to not investigate individual cases. Please do not submit evidence in order to make safeguarding referrals, complaints or allegations. If you have immediate safeguarding concerns about a child, you should contact the Police on 999 or the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000.
If you would like your submission (or part of it) to be kept confidential and not published, please make this clear. We may anonymise or redact some of your submission if it is published.