Editorial: The biggest workforce changes are yet to come

Aside from some fresh funding to improve training and professional development in social work, play and early years, the announcements in the main offer a restatement of objectives for integrated working and a progress report on how services are working together. The big decisions on measures to speed up joint working are yet to come.

An "expert group of workforce champions" has been appointed to explore some suggestions. These include appraisals of the remits of the various sector skills councils - with consolidation on the cards - and of inconsistencies in terms and conditions across the workforce, and whether these deter practitioners from coming together. The group's findings will feed into a long-term workforce strategy to be published in the autumn, along with the start of a three-year programme of training and support to strengthen commissioning capabilities in local authorities.