Revised remit for CWDC

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has agreed savings of £15m for 2010-11 with the Department for Education (DfE) and has confirmed a revised remit with a strong emphasis on cost-effective delivery to support front-line services. The savings mostly affect CWDC's communications spend and pilot programmes.

To ensure CWDC continues to support front-line services and achieve the best for children, young people and families, it has been agreed the £15m of savings will be made from the following areas: 

• £7.5m from communications
• £4m in efficiency savings and as a result of refocusing delivery
• £2m in stopping pilots that will not impact on front-line delivery
• £1m from the public sector recruitment freeze
• £0.5m in research, including the Practitioner-led research project 

In particular, the following work will cease or change in scope as detailed: 

Communications: 

• The Be the difference marketing campaign, which has achieved its objectives of increasing the number of people wanting to become social workers, will not continue. We will support the 57,000 individuals who have registered interest in becoming a social worker to take the step into a new career, and will continue to support local recruitment activities.  
• Early Years marketing will be undertaken more cost-effectively and CWDC will build on both the success of last year's Early Years Professional campaign and the strong infrastructure our training providers have been developing, in partnership with local authorities.     
• Young People's Reform communications will also be undertaken more cost-effectively and will focus on working with CWDC's local and national partners to lead change and do the very best for young people. In doing so CWDC will listen to the views of the sector on how reforms are benefitting them and what support they will need in the years ahead.

Pilot programmes: 

• Work on the practice - based Masters programme for qualified social workers will not continue', which was at a very early stage of development. CWDC will continue to support employers to improve the skills and competencies of social workers in a children and families context, for example through its programmes of support and development for newly qualified social workers and those in the early years of their careers. We will continue to support the Social Work Reform board in developing a new CPD framework for social work and will look to support Professor Munro in her review and to play our part in the implementation of her recommendations.  
• The number of places on training to deliver parenting programmes has been reduced, with 1,000 workers in priority groups and services receiving training on evidence based parenting programmes. Supporting families to become stronger and helping children and young people to achieve through supporting the parents and families workforce remains one of CWDC's key objectives. 
• The pilot project on Youth Professional Status will no longer run, in line with recent government announcements on running pilots. We will continue to fund the training of frontline workers in those areas that have been invited to join the pilot and will also continue building frontline workforce capacity through other projects such as the leadership and management training and by providing 25,000 training places for the voluntary sector.  

Research: 

• The Practitioner-led research project which has run successfully for three years will not continue. CWDC has excellent and valuable examples of the difference practitioners have made to local practice, and we will now be working with local areas to share this research.  
• The remainder of the savings in research will be achieved by discontinuing projects that were not fully scoped or started. CWDC will continue to publish research in 2010 to ensure the effectiveness of our work makes a difference to children and young people.  

Ends