§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the answer of 6 March 2002,Official Report,column 432W, on care worker training, what funding he has made available to meet the costs of training care workers to NVQ level II (a)in respect of the draft domiciliary care standards and (b)in respect of the care home standards. [42915]
§ Jacqui SmithWith regard to domiciliary care workers I refer the hon. Member to my answer of 7 February 2002,Official Report,column 117W. Provision has been made in the personal social services standard spending assessment (PSS SSA) in 2002–03 and 2003–04 for the training of care workers to NVQ level 2 standard as set out in the care standards. The PSS SSA is unhypothecated, and it is for individual councils to consider how much to spend on this training in the light of local circumstances.
In April 2001 we set up a fund to help towards the implementation of the national training strategy for the social care work force. This fund is being disbursed by TOPSS (the national training organisation for social care) through their regional training forums. There was £2 million in this fund for 2001–02 and it has been used to embed induction training and it has been available to train staff working in the voluntary, private and statutory sectors.
The fund has increased to £15 million for 2002–03. This money will be used to support 26,500 staff to undertake training. Some 11,500 of these staff will be undertaking assessor, verifier or mentor training in order to strengthen NVQ frameworks, enabling staff to complete their NVQs in future years.