§ Ms. RichardsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 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. NeedhamThe information requested is not available in the form requested, since the financial records of the Department of Health and Social Services do not distinguish between grants allocated for the training of child care workers and for other purposes.
404WHealth and social services boards meet their own training costs out of their annual revenue allocations from the Department. In May 1988,I announced that an extra £50,000 a year was being made available to boards for at least three years to provide additional training in tackling child abuse. £25,000 has been allocated to date, and the annual sum will be increased to £100,000 in 1989–90. In addition, the Department is contributing to the cost of developing the University of Bath's computer software programme, CHIAC, to assist social workers handling child abuse cases. Development costs for the Northern Ireland programme will amount to £28,000 and £48,000 has been allocated to boards towards the acquisition of computers to enable them to make full use of CHIAC.
The Department funds directly the training of the staff of voluntary social services organisations and offers bursaries and studentships to individual social work students. The Department's expenditure on these items in 1987–88 was £673,700.