Care Council for Wales publish annual review

By Iain MacDonald18th November 2014News WalesNews Wales, Review

The Care Council for Wales has published their annual review for 2013/14.

Regulation is more effective when it links closely to the development of the social care workforce. That is one of the key messages from the Care Council’s annual review for 2013/14 which has now been published.

Rhian Huws Williams (pictured), Care Council Chief Executive, said: “Evidence from our regulatory work shows how important it is, but it is clearly more effective when it links closely to our activity to develop the workforce. Evidence and trends from our regulatory work, for instance, led to the development and publication of the first practice guidance for social workers produced by a professional regulatory body in the UK. This forms an important part of our wider work to professionalise the role of social workers.

“The mandatory registration of social care managers has not only been important in stressing the non-negotiable standards for these important roles, but it has also provided us with national information for the development of a professional framework for managers, who have a key role in creating and maintaining the right culture in care homes.

“The nature of the workforce has changed, and continues to change. And, as we move closer to the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act and consideration of the Bill for Regulation and Inspection, we have to make sure that any new legislative framework for professional regulation of the workforce is future-proofed.

“We are therefore aiming to be ‘on the front-foot’, offering leadership to the sector, partners and the public, as well as being ready to try new models of working. Crucial to this over the last year has been listening to others; citizens, including people who use services and carers, who have helped shape our development of the workforce and regulatory work.

“During the year, we influenced the content of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Bill, as well as the proposals set out in the Welsh Government’s White Paper on Regulation and Inspection. We provided discussion papers for the Bill and the White Paper, with our response to the latter being developed following roundtable discussions with a variety of stakeholders.

“We continued to exert influence through our membership of leadership groups set up by the Welsh Government to advise on how to implement the changes set out in the new legislation. Into these groups, we fed information and advice drawn from the evidence gathered from our work to regulate and develop the social care workforce. At all times, this was done by working in partnership with the sector, regionally and nationally, knowing from experience this is the only effective way to work in a small country.

“Overall, it has been a year of continuing our work to regulate and develop the social care workforce on a number of fronts, as well as looking to the future, anticipating change and showing leadership on how we should do things differently,” she added.

Key statistics and milestones from 2013/14 include:

11,864 practitioners and students were on our public Register of Social Care Workers at the end of March 2014
83 per cent of registrants now use online services to manage their accounts
Allegations were made against 187 practitioners (1.6 per cent of registrants) – a drop of 34 per cent from the previous year
18 practitioners went before final conduct hearings, representing 0.15 per cent of all those on the Register
1,000 publicly-funded qualifications for early years and social care were reviewed to check their suitability
A revised list of qualifications for those working in early years and childcare was published
3,609 apprenticeships were completed
907 students registered for childcare learning and development apprenticeships
247 students gained the professional qualification of a social work degree
1,624 social workers have now qualified with a degree since 2004
597 bursaries worth £2.610m were awarded to social work students
£1.3m of funding was awarded to local authorities to provide practice-learning opportunities for social work students
Social worker vacancies in local authorities stood at six per cent
An alliance of four universities in Wales was chosen to develop and deliver the experienced, senior and consultant social worker programmes as part of the Continuing Professional Education and Learning (CPEL) framework
The first guidance to help social workers and social care managers in their day-to-day work was published
The first nationally-accredited safeguarding awareness programme was accredited and piloted
107 Care Ambassadors were recruited across Wales to promote social care as a career
A strategy and information to support care workers in the use of electronic assistive technology was launched
There were more than 700,000 visits to Care Council website.