§ Ms. RichardsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of his Department's appropriate grant aid budget has been allocated to the training of child care workers over the last five years to date.
§ Mr. FreemanTraining for child care workers is primarily the responsibility of local authorities, and information on the proportion of rate support grant used for such purposes is not held centrally. The Department introduced in 1986 a central training initiative on child abuse to fund a range of projects aimed at developing training for workers from a number of disciplines and professions concerned with child abuse. Expenditure on that initiative was ?10,000 in 1986–87, £205,000 in 1987–88 and is expected to be £375,000 in 1988–89; and that programme is continuing.
In addition, my right hon. Friend, the then Minister for Health announced on 6 July 1988 at column 1062 the introduction of additional grants of £7 million in support of expenditure of £10 million for social services child care staff in 1989–90.