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Safeguarding Children

My Lords, we have been working hard to address the bureaucracy load of social workers through initiatives such as the integrated children’s system, which is very much about streamlining the administration and record-keeping with which social workers are engaged, and the development of the contact point online directory. As the noble Lord makes clear, it is important that professionals keep accurate and timely records, and that there are processes to facilitate them in doing so. On the children’s workforce strategy, of course we are looking at the experience of teaching and at what lessons can be learnt. Now, more than ever, we need to recognise the extremely challenging and important role that social workers play in supporting safeguarding children and young people. We need to look forensically at what specific initiatives we can develop to ensure that the profession develops comprehensively from the start, through professional development and so on.