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Social Care Skills Academy
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Last modified date:24 October 2008
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Gateway reference:8716
John Denham, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, announced on 7 October 2008 that the social care sector will have its own national skills academy.
The National Skills Academy for Social Care, which will be established as an independent organisation on 30 March 2009, will be the first welfare-related skills academy and will target training and development support to the 1.5 million social care workers in England. There will be a particular emphasis on small and medium sized organisations with limited training and development budgets.
The announcement follows a competitive bidding process which culminated in four skills academies being approved.
For further details visit The Skills Academy for Social Care website.
The Department of Health is committed to working with stakeholders, including Skills for Care and employers, to develop a National Skills Academy for Social Care. A steering group under the chairmanship of David Sherlock has been established to take forward this work.
Next Steps
The Steering Group will continue to develop the Academy. This involves developing a 5 year business plan for approval by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and creating the organisation.
Social Care Skills Academy Steering Group
A steering group has been established to oversee the development of the Social Care Skills Academy under the Chairmanship of David Sherlock.
David Sherlock was appoointed as chair by Ivan lewis (the then Minister for Care Services) and is currently a Director of Beyond Standards and from 1997 to April 2007 was Chief Executive of the Training Standards Council, and then the Adult Learning Inspectorate. He is also currently President of NIACE (the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education).
Jennifer Bernard is Programme Director for the SCSA and was appointed by Social Care Institute of Exellence (on behalf of DH) following a competitive recruitment exercise. She is a member of the Adult Social Care Workforce Board. She has held a number of senior posts in social care organisations
Other members include representatives of Skills for Care; Local Government Association; Innovation and Development Agency; Association of Directors of Adult Social Care; Social Care Institute for Excellence; Shaping our Lives: the National User Network; English Community Care Association; National Care Forum; National Care Association, Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations; Children’s Workforce Development Council; Joint University Council’s Social Work Education Committee (JUC-SWEC), and Department of Health.
Establishing the skills academy is a major plank of the five-point plan to put excellence at the heart of the government's vision for twenty first century social care.
The five-point plan follows a report commissioned by Mr Lewis from Dame Denise Platt on the state of social care. The centre piece of the package will be a skills academy focussed on developing world class leadership and commissioning in the public, private and voluntary sectors.
What is the Social Care Skills Academy?
The development of National Skills Academies began in 2005, and is a programme currently sponsored by DIUS and DCSF. The academies are described as “A network of employer-led world-class centres of excellence delivering the skills required by each sector of the economy.” More information about the programme can be found on their website below.
A steering group has been taking forward the National Skills Academy for Social Care since the Minister, Ivan Lewis, announced Department of Health support for an academy. A bid for Academy approval was submitted from the Steering Group on 15 July 2008. The result of the first sift of applications will be known on 12 August 2008, with selected bidders invited for a competitive interview in early September 2008.
A short briefing paper on the National Skills Academy for Social Care expression of interest is attached.
Vision for a Social Care Skills Academy
The proposal to establish a skills academy was announced by the Minister for Care Services at the ADASS Spring Seminar at the end of April 2007. It builds on the recommendations of the Platt Report on raising the status of social care and it is the centrepiece of a five-point plan to improve social care. The Department of Health is supporting and facilitating social care employers and stakeholders to take this forward. Within the Department of Health, this initiative is being led jointly by the Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships and Workforce directorates
On 18 June 2007 the Department of Health brought together a wide range of organisations from the social care sector in order to:
- establish views of stakeholders about the potential role and purpose of a skills academy
- identify and take stock of relevant existing work and inter-connecting initiatives and
- agree how to take forward the work.
This is set out in:
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