Social work needs the brightest graduates

In the wake of the Jimmy Savile case and other ‘household names’ being investigated for alleged sexual abuse, the Education Secretary Michael Gove has said that he wants the brightest graduates to go into social services.

At the same time, the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has said that we should not make the mistake of thinking that such cases of abuse are rare and he pointed to the Rochdale child grooming case as clear evidence that there was still a culture of tolerating sexual abuse.

The Gove proposal is based around a scheme called Frontline which would encourage and enable graduates to move into and stay in the social work profession.

The Department for Education said: “We want to improve the quality of social work training and welcome any proposals which encourage the most talented graduates to consider it as a career.”

On the Savile case, Grayling told the BBC: “There was clearly a culture that should never, ever, ever have been allowed to exist. Lest we should think the world has changed totally, you just have to look at what’s happened in some northern towns recently where there have been some equally shocking cases of abuses, of gangs of men abusing teenage girls. So this is not a problem that’s gone away.”

He added: “I hope every single person in the law enforcement world today are accepting the fact that things were badly wrong. It should never happen again.”