Friday, 26 March 2010 12:32

 The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) as part of Skills for Care and Development (SfC&D) has been relicensed by government as the UK sector skills council for the social care, children and young people's workforce. Today's announcement by Lord Mandelson comes following an assessment by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and the National Audit Office (NAO).

 

Garry Coutts, Convener of the SSSC said:

 

"As the sector skills council for the social service workforce in Scotland we are delighted with today's announcement. This is a growing workforce, which includes social work, social care, children's and older people's services and provides care and support to thousands of people. It is crucial that they have the skills for these demanding jobs. The people of Scotland deserve excellent social services, delivered by qualified people with strong personal qualities and values.

 

"This confirms that our partnership across the four nations is strong and the right way to deliver a pan-UK approach to building a confident, competent social service workforce. We have many challenges ahead in the sector, indeed across public services and we can face them from a position of strength."

Anna Fowlie, Chief Executive of the SSSC said:

"Services will need to change in the coming years to meet high public expectations of personalised support in a context of reducing expenditure and growing demand. Highly developed workforce planning is essential to delivering those changes and working with employers allows us to make sure the occupational standards and qualifications that are needed to provide the highest quality of care are available.

"The SSSC is leading on that in Scotland, working closely with employers, education & learning providers, workers and people who use services. Through our partnership in SfCD and our close relationships with other sector skills councils, we can ensure that the four nations learn from each other, offer UK-wide solutions where appropriate and minimise cross-border barriers wherever possible."

Sector Skills Councils are employer-led bodies, established to enable employers to exert influence on the UK's education and skills systems to ensure they meet their needs.

 

Read more about Lord Mandelson's announcement at http://www.ukces.org.uk/

 

 

Notes to Editors

 

For more information, contact Nicola Gilray, Communications Manager, SSSC, on 0382 207261/07766 133243.

 

Skills for Care and Development (SfCD) is an alliance of six organisations:
Scottish Social Services Council, Care Council for Wales, Children's Workforce Development Council, General Social Care Council, Northern Ireland Social Care Council, and Skills for Care.

 

SfCD is licensed by government to represent the interests of some 60,000 employers and 1.87 million workers across the UK. These workers are employed by a range of organisations - public and independent organisations, often commissioned by the public sector to deliver social care services but sometimes acting directly for people who receive the services. In all cases, our drive is for appropriately skilled and qualified workers to meet the UK's current and future social care needs. To this end we work with people who use services and carers, education and training providers, national stakeholders such as health and other sector skills councils.

 

The SSSC is based in Dundee and was set up in October 2001 under the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001.

 

 Its objectives are:

• to protect those who use services
• to raise standards of practice
• to strengthen and support the professionalism of the workforce.

 

The SSSC has five main tasks:

• to establish registers of key groups of social services staff
• to publish Codes of Practice for all social services staff and for employers
• to regulate the training and education of the workforce to undertake the functions of Skills for Care and Development, the sector skills council for the social care, children's' and young people's workforce and this includes workforce planning
• to promote education and training.

 

Each country in the UK has its own regulatory body. They are: the Care Council for Wales, the General Social Care Council (England), the Northern Ireland Social Care Council and the Scottish Social Services Council. The Councils are each responsible for the registration and regulation of social services workers in their country. They work in co-operation with other regulatory bodies such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council.