Social Care Workforce Development

As an amendment to motion S1M-02994 in the name of Cathy Jamieson (Social Care Workforce Development), leave out from second “the work” to end and insert “the steady decline over the last five years in applications to study social work; further notes that Edinburgh University is poised to scrap its social work degree; further notes that difficulties in recruiting social workers are expressed as a serious concern by the majority of local authorities in Scotland; regrets the absence of a recruitment campaign such as has been launched in other parts of the UK and deplores the lack of strategy which will address the poor public image of the profession, review the pay and conditions of social workers, increase flexibility in job opportunities to aid retention, develop positive initiatives to support front line staff or encourage secondment, and concludes that the Executive is merely posturing on this issue and neither acknowledging the crisis nor addressing the critical issues with real commitment.