To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families when he expects the review of training and continuing professional development of the social care workforce under the National Minimum Standards review to be completed. (247278)

The Care Matters White Paper sets out our plans for improving the training and support to foster carers and residential care workers. This commitment is also being taken forward by the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) who introduced training, support and development standards to support foster carers from approval through the first two years of service. These give fostering providers a framework for their foster carers’ training and professional development. CWDC are currently working with stakeholders to develop a professional development framework for social care workers, this will incorporate the foster care training support and development framework. CWDC are also developing core standards specific to residential care workers that will raise the quality of care and support a child can expect to receive in the home. We will be linking this work to the National Minimum Standards (NMS) as part of our review of the NMS. We will be consulting on changes to these during 2009.