Child Care Staff (Hansard, 24 October 1994)

§ Miss Lestor
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the latest available figures for changes in the number of appropriately qualified staff working in residential care since the publication of the Utting report on children in public care.

Mr. Kirwood
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the change in the number of appropriately qualified staff working in residential child care since the publication of the Utting report.

§ Mr. Bowis
The Utting report found that 21 per cent. of all officers in charge of residential children's homes had no relevant qualification. We introduced the residential child care initiative in 1992 to assist authorities to achieve the Utting recommendation that all officers in charge should be professionally qualified by 1995. Under this initiative, the Department is funding 465 places on special DipSW programmes. In addition, the training support programme is available to support the costs of training all social services staff, including those in residential children's homes.
Local authorities social services departments are responsible for ensuring that all heads of residential homes for children are qualified and appropriately trained. Their policies and practice on staff recruitment and retention have a considerable influence on this objective.

§ Miss Lestor
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what action she is taking to ensure a significant expansion of training for residential child care staff.

§ Mr. Kirkwood
To ask the Secretary of State for Health is she will list the fresh initiatives she proposes to take to assure a major expansion of training for residential child care staff; and if she will make a statement.

§ Mr. Bowis
The Government attach great importance to the training of all social services staff who work with children, particularly those in the residential sector. This year the Department is providing £15.4 million under the training support programme for the training of staff working in the child care field. This includes £4 million specifically earmarked for the residential child care initiative, for the professional training of officers in charge of residential children's homes. New occupational standards covering staff in residential child care settings will be available from next spring.

§ Mr. Kirkwood
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps(a) she has taken and (b) proposes to take to implement the recommendations of the Utting and Warner reports.

§ Mr. Bowis
Progress on the implementation of recommendations in the Utting and Warner reports is reported annually in the Children Act reports, copies of which are available in the Library.