Department for Education written question – answered at on 9 July 2026.
Martin Wrigley
Liberal Democrat, Newton Abbot
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of response times from Social Work England for complains about social workers.
Josh MacAlister
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education
The department is the sponsor department for Social Work England, and as such we monitor their performance on an ongoing basis. Social Work England is also regulated by the Professional Standards Authority.
The government has a statutory obligation to appoint an independent person to review the operation of Part 2 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, which includes powers related to Social Work England. The review, chaired by Dame Annie Hudson, will collect evidence of Social Work England’s overall effectiveness and efficiency of its core regulatory functions. Further details will be announced in due course, and on completion, the report will be laid before Parliament.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
