Social care: key facts

• Around 1.39 million people were employed in social care in 2006-2007 , with an estimated increase to over 2.2 million by 2025
• The majority of social care workers are employed by over 35,000 social care providers . Two thirds of the entire workforce is employed in the independent sector with the remaining one third working in local authority social services departments .
• Every week social care workers provide vital advice and support to approximately over 2 million people in England
• Social care workers are employed in many different jobs, helping people with many different needs. They might, for example, work as home and day care centre assistants with the elderly, as personal assistants with disabled people or as care workers with children in residential and foster homes.  Residential care accounts for around a half of all employment and homecare a quarter.
• There are over 80,000 registered social workers in England. About half of those in practice are involved in supporting and protecting children, young people and families and half support adults in a wide variety of roles, including working with offenders, older people and people with mental health problems or disabilities. 
• The GSCC was set up to register social workers and social care workers. At the moment it registers social workers and social work students. The next group of social care workers to join the register will be homecare workers and their managers. The GSCC is working with the Department of Health to finalise the details of this and hopes to begin registering this group in the very near future.