Social Work Reform: Government pledges £23m to improve child protection

Announcing its plan for implementing the 15 recommendations of the Social Work Taskforce, the government said local authorities will receive money from a Local Social Work Improvement Fund managed by the Children's Workforce Development Council.

The fund is to be used to improve systems for responding to referrals of possible children in need and increase the time that social workers can spend with children and families.

An additional £15m pot of funding is also being provided to improve local authority IT systems used to record cases and referrals.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said: "Today's new funding and reform package will help to relieve pressure on frontline social workers. It demonstrates our commitment to this important profession, whose contribution to society is often undervalued."

The government has also published the revised chapter eight of Working Together to Safeguard Children in an attempt to improve the transparency of serious case reviews.

The guidance now requires Local Safeguarding Children's Boards to ensure executive summaries of serious case reviews accurately reflect the full serious case review and include information about the review process, key issues arising from the case, the recommendations and the action plan for improvement.

Balls added: "Today's revised guidance sets out some important changes, such as the need for fuller and thorough serious case review executive summaries. Serious case reviews are critically important to learning lessons so they're not repeated. Getting them right, and taking clear follow-up action is vital."

The government has also announced it is to invest up to an extra £10m to family court service Cafcass, to tackle backlogs of cases.