Social Care News and Features

The government will give councils funding to train more staff as social workers in adults’ services through apprenticeships.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will give councils and adult social care providers just over £20m between them to fund social work and nursing apprenticeships in 2024-25.

The DHSC announced the funding yesterday, alongside its plan to develop a career pathway for adult social care staff, backed by £53.9m in 2024-25 to fund 37,000 care workers to take a new level 2 qualification (see below).

Both the apprenticeships and pathway funding pots come from £250m the DHSC has set aside to develop the adult social care workforce from 2023-25, a cut from £500m it had originally earmarked for the purpose from 2022-25.

Cut to workforce funding 

The original £500m package had included a plan to train more adult social workers through new routes into the profession, which had been designed to boost the workforce in line with the demands of the planned adult social care charging reforms.

This was ditched after the reforms were delayed by two years – to October 2025 – but the DHSC has now confirmed that at least some of the remaining workforce development funding will go on training new social workers.

This comes with vacancy rates for council adult social workers having risen in recent years, to 11.6% as of September 2022, amid consistently high waiting lists for assessments and reviews, which has been linked to practitioner shortages.

Chief social worker hails announcement

The DHSC’s chief social worker for adults, Lyn Romeo, welcomed the investment in apprenticeships.

“It recognises how essential it is that we attract and support social workers into local authority adult social care departments to work with people and their families to ensure they get the best possible support to live the lives that matter to them,” said Romeo, who retires at the end of this month.

“The apprenticeship route into social work allows people to work and contribute to social care delivery while completing their social work professional qualification.

“This investment provides local authorities with opportunities to recruit more social work apprentices and will help them build a long-term sustainable workforce for the future.

About social work apprenticeships

Social work apprenticeships are degree-level qualifications that generally take three years, with apprentices spending at least 20% of their time in off-the-job training, delivered by a university or other learning provider.

They spend the rest of the time carrying out their substantive role, though employers also arrange social work placements for them, in line with Social Work England’s requirements for students to do 200 days of practice learning across their course.

Generally, for local authorities, the training costs of apprenticeships – though not other costs, such as salaries – are funded through the apprenticeship levy, a 0.5% charge on the pay bill of larger employers, from which they can then draw down resources for training.

However, in this case, some councils will be able to make use of the DHSC funding for at least some of the social work apprenticeships they fund during 2024-25. This is similar to the Department for Education providing funding of 461 social work apprenticeships for 79 local authority children’s services departments.

New career pathway for care staff

Alongside the apprenticeship announcement, the DHSC unveiled the first phase of its care workforce pathway – a new career framework for adult social care.

This set out four categories for direct care and support roles – new to care, care or support worker, supervisor or leader and practice leader – and required behaviours, expected knowledge and skills, broad responsibilities and potential learning opportunities for each.

Alongside this, the DHSC announced the establishment of a level 2 care certificate, which will be launched in June 2024 and which the department intends to become the baseline qualification for all new care or support workers to work towards.

Recognising care work as ‘skilled profession’

It has provided £53.9m to enable 37,000 staff to enroll on the qualification between June 2024 and March 2025.

Care minister Helen Whately said the measures recognised social care “as the skilled profession it is”, and would “give brilliant care workers the chance to develop rewarding careers” in the sector.

They come with the latest Skills for Care data showing that the proportion of care workers with a level 2 qualification had fallen from 49% to 42% from 2018-23, with half having no relevant qualifications.

Whately pointed to analysis by the workforce development body showing that turnover rates were lower where employers provided staff with access to learning opportunities and qualifications.

The same assessment also showed turnover levels were shaped by whether staff were working full-time, on zero-hours contracts or on pay levels above the national living wage, and sector bodies warned the pathway would not succeed without action on salaries.

Lack of pay progression

Pay levels for many care workers are due to increase significantly in April this year, when the national living wage (NLW) rises by 9.8%, from £10.42 to £11.44 per hour, and is applied, for the first time, to those aged 21 and 22.

However, not only have council leaders warned that they have not received additional funding to finance the rise for the providers they commission, but NLW increases do nothing to address the lack of pay progression in the sector.

On average, care workers with at least five years’ experience are paid just six pence (0.6%) more per hour than those with less than a year’s experience, according to Skills for Care.

Third sector provider body the National Care Forum’s chief executive, Vic Rayner, said: “The commitment to train nearly 40,000 staff is a step up from the current position but represents under 10% of all new starters in the sector, and of course none of these commitments come with any focus on moving us closer to a set of pay, terms and conditions that match the skills and expertise laid out in the new pathway.

“The role of a care worker is complex and skilled – and a pathway without an accompanying properly funded pay structure will do little to attract and retain people to progress through the career structure.”

The Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, which also represents not-for-profit providers, issued a similar message.

“To fully realise the benefits from the workforce pathway we must see social care adequately funded,” said its chief executive, Rhidian Hughes. “This will enable organisations to make real investment in workforce development and pay over the long term, thereby encouraging workforce development and progression.

‘The government has consistently refused to provide the funding and certainty that not-for-profit organisations desperately need to increase care worker pay. Consequently, third sector providers are left in an impossible situation; committed to delivering high quality support but struggling to fill staff vacancies and facing operating costs rising above commissioned fee rates.”