The Government has announced that social workers will in future have to complete a three-year degree course to qualify.

The move is part of an initiative to raise standards and improve the public image of social work in England and help tackle the recruitment crisis facing scores of local authorities.

Health Minister John Hutton announced the "radical reforms" including the introduction of a three-year degree level social work qualification from 2003.

The announcement followed "extensive consultations" with social care professionals.

Mr Hutton said: "Social services provide vital support and care for many people in our society.

"We need to ensure that the quality of care provided is of the highest possible order and to do that we need to radically reform both the perception of social workers and the training qualification needed to join the profession.

"Social work needs to be recognised as an important and valued professional career, seen by young people as an attractive job choice.

"That is why the Government attaches great importance to improving training through the development of a new degree level course."

The new training courses will include a much greater input on practice learning, to ensure that social workers coming off training courses are better equipped to provide high quality services to the public.

The minister recently announced £2m funding to establish the new Social Care Institute for Excellence as another key element in the drive to modernise social services and tackle variations in quality and standards of services that exist between authorities.

Social workers, who make up 14 per cent of the social care workforce, are required to make key assessments and decisions affecting people's lives, their rights, their safety and protection, as well as the safety and protection of the public.

In October a new General Social Care Council will regulate qualifying and post-qualifying training in social work. It will also regulate the social care workforce, by publishing Codes of Practice and register social care workers.

The first group of social care workers to be registered will be social workers followed by residential childcare workers and managers of residential care homes.

Registration will be based on obtaining the required level of qualification, and satisfying required standards of conduct and competence.

The Diploma in Social Work (DipSW) is currently the recognised qualification for social workers. In England there are 79 DipSW programmes, with 4,110 awards being made to students in 1999/2000.

The majority of students undertake a two-year full-time course, although increasing numbers of students are undertaking part-time and distance learning routes to the DipSW.

Some 930 students per year undertake post-graduate training leading to the DipSW. Currently 670 students per year undertake undergraduate programmes which leads to the award of a degree and the DipSW.