AQW 29234/22-27

Mr Danny Donnelly
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 25/06/2025
Answered On Date: 07/07/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to outline what plans are in place to increase the number of undergraduate social work training places commissioned by his Department, in light of growing workforce pressures and consistently oversubscribed university programmes.

Answer:

I am pleased to say that the Department has been steadily increasing investment in additional social work student training places since 2019, beginning with 15 places on the newly-approved Degree in Social Work at the Open University. The table below provides an account of how investment in training places has increased from a baseline of 260 in 2018;

	QUB	UU	OU	Total
2018	148	112	0	260
2019	148	112	15	275
2020	148	112	15	275
2021	148	112	25	285
2022	148	112	40	300
2023	148	112	45	305
2024	161	127	51	339
2025	163	127	59	349

It is important to note that 349 is the largest number of commissioned social worker training places since the establishment of the NI Degree in Social Work in 2004.