To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department has allocated for the training of (a) youth workers and (b) social service practitioners to enable early identification of young people at risk in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. (240492)

Since April 2008 DCSF has allocated a Children's Social Care Workforce Grant of £18.156 million for each of the three years (2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11) to the Area Based Grant¹ for the children's social care work force (including social workers), to support work force training and development.

The Children's Social Care Workforce Grant was formerly allocated by the Department of Health (DH) in two portions (along with the Adults Social Care Workforce Grant) as part of the Social Services National Training Strategy and Human Resources Development Strategy grants to support social care work force development in the adult and children's sector. Funding from DH in past years for these grants totalled:

In 2008-09 DCSF also allocated £12.455 million to the Children's Workforce Development Council to improve the capacity, skills and supply of social workers in children's services, working closely with partners such as the General Social Care Council and those supporting improvements in adult social work, including Skills for Care.

The Government do not collect data on the training of youth workers. From 2006-07 to 2008-09 the Government have invested £15 million to support local authorities in implementing reforms to targeted youth support services so that interventions are made earlier for vulnerable young people to help prevent poor outcomes.

¹ The ABG is administered by the Department for Communities and Local Government; it is a non-ringfenced grant which gives local authorities the flexibility to determine locally how best to spend the resource in order to deliver local, regional and national priorities in their areas.