FOI_25-242 Specialist Social Work training
Date of response: 08 September 2025
We have now considered your request of 14 August 2025 for the following information:
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I am requesting the following information regarding specialist training provided to social work students at your institution:
Question 1. Modules & Duration – Please list all mandatory and optional training modules in your social work courses that cover the following:
For each, please state:
a) Whether it is mandatory or optional.
b) The total number of hours/minutes of training provided.
c) The year(s) of study in which it is delivered.
o Autism Spectrum Disorder
o ADHD
o Down Syndrome
o Spina Bifida
o Wheelchair users & mobility impairments
o PEG/stomach-fed patients
o Survivors of parental abuse
o Elderly care & dementia
o Military veterans (including amputees and PTSD)
Question 2. Practical Placements – For each of the above groups, please confirm whether your social work students are required to complete practical placements or field experience and the minimum duration of such placements.
Question 3. Assessment & Competence – Please confirm whether formal assessments are carried out for these modules and whether students can qualify as social workers without completing them.
Our response:
We regret that on this occasion it is not possible to provide the requested information.
Under Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act, we can confirm that the University does hold the information requested, however on this occasion it is not possible for us to provide any of the information relating to the Social Work modules which cover the subjects noted in your request, whether they are mandatory or optional, the total number of hours/minutes of training given on each subject, and the year of study to which the training is delivered, whether students are required to complete practical placements and duration, and whether formal assessments are carried out for each for each module which may cover each of the issues noted in your request.
We have determined that the cost of finding and assembling the requested information will exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ as defined by section 12 of the Act and the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004/3244.
'The ‘appropriate limit’ of £450, which equates to 18 hours’ work, as defined by the Information Commissioner’s Office, can relate to one request in its entirety or to a series of linked requests. If the University cannot locate, retrieve and extract some or all of the requested information within the 18 hours we are not obliged to retrieve any of the requested information.
Information relating to modules and training provided to students studying Social Work courses, (whether they cover training on ASD, ADHD, Down Syndrome, Spina Bifida Wheelchair user and mobility impairments, PEG fed patients, survivors of parental abuse, elderly care, dementia and Military Veterans, is held within our School of Social Sciences department. There is no central record of where this information is held, and each module outline and corresponding module data is held by each module organiser.
For the current academic year, we have identified a total of 25 Social Work modules which may fall into the scope of your request. The only way of identifying, extracting and recording the exact information you seek would be to interrogate each individual module outline and any other data held by module organisers manually.
We have calculated it would take 45 minutes per module records, or 18.75 hours, to locate and manually interrogate each individual module. Which exceeds the appropriate time-limit as outlined above.
Under section 16 of the Act, and to assist you in formulating a request to which we can respond, we would be able to provide response to questions 1, 2 and 3 for one of the following four social work courses only.
BA (HONS) Social Work
MA Social Work
Social Work Apprenticeship
Social Work (Integrated Degree) Apprenticeship.
Please note we have not considered whether any exemptions may apply to such a request.
We should also point out that any revised request you submit will be treated as a new FOI request, and the 20 working-day time-limit will begin again.
We are sorry we cannot provide the data you requested, but trust this response explains our position.