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National Skills Academy for Social Care

  • Last modified date:
    22 October 2009
  • Gateway reference:
    12845

The Department of Health has supported and continues to support the National Skills Academy for Social Care. Its development has been led by a steering group  of social care employers under the chairmanship of David Sherlock.

The National Skills Academy for Social Care was launched on 13 October 2009 by Skills Minister Kevin Brennan and Care Services Minister Phil Hope. This followed approval of a detailed business plan by the Learning and Skills Council.  On 7 October 2008, John Denham (the then Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills), announced the Academy had been approved into business planning. The announcement followed a competitive bidding process which culminated in four skills academies being approved into detailed business planning.

The National Skills Academy for Social Care is a company limited by guarantee with charitable status. Iinitially the NSA will be funded by the Department of Health and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills through the Learning and Skills Council. It will receive over £6m in Government funding in its first three years, alongside sponsorship from employers. It will then be expected to be self-sustainable.

The National Skills Academy for Social Care is part of a national network of Skills Academies (13 now active) which are driven by business and delivering high quality skills that business needs across all the key sectors of the economy.  Around 880,000 people will be trained by the National Skills Academies during their first five years of operation – securing around £130m in employer investment. 

It 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.

For further details, please visit:

What is the Social Care Skills Academy?

The development of National Skills Academies began in 2005, and is a programme currently sponsored by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Children, Schiools and Families.  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.'

The employer-led National Skills Academy for Social Care is designed to complement the existing organisations within the sector, identifying gaps, transforming provision and promoting excellence in skills development, learning support and training practice in social care

More information about the programme can be found on their website:

Key areas of work of the Skills Academy that have already been identified include:

  • personalised care programmes – ensuring they are innovative and user-friendly and co-produced in partnership with a range of individuals and organisations
  • quality assurance programmes – enabling learning providers, trainers and those developing learning materials to aspire to excellence in their standard of training provision
  • recruitment, retention and career development programmes – stimulating recruitment into the sector, with special emphasis on former family carers, young people, unemployed people and men to help raise the profile of social care
  • leadership and management programmes – promoting excellence in the provision of management and leadership training and development practice, including the adult social care graduate management trainee scheme 
  • a sector champion – providing an effective voice for employers to promote excellence in training and development and helping those who work in social care to become more effective advocates and spokespeople.

The National Skills Academy for Social Care is leading the leadership workstream of Working to Put People First: the strategy for the adult social care workforce in England.

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