Children's Secretary Ed Balls and Health Secretary Alan Johnson will announce a root-and-branch overhaul of the profession this week looking at every aspect of social work, including training, recruitment and leadership.

Mr Balls said controversial changes would take place, with more on-the-job training to ensure professionals entrusted with child safety can carry out their task properly.

The national review comes as an independent inquiry is launched in Kirklees to find out why social workers removed kidnapped schoolgirl Shannon Matthews from the child protection register after deciding she was no longer at risk of harm.

Kirklees Council announced last week an independent serious case review would be launched into the authority's dealings with the family following the conviction of Shannon's mother Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan for the kidnap and false imprisonment of the schoolgirl.

The former director of social services at the council has defended the authority's record following the scrutiny over what role social workers played in the family's case.

It is understood Shannon was removed from the Child Protection Register in 2003 – five years before her mother and Donovan staged her disappearance.

Former social services boss Philip Cotterill told a national newspaper that social workers had no way of knowing what would happen in the Matthews case. Mr Cotterill, who left Kirklees Council in 2006, said inspection reports show the authority always had an exemplary record.

Tory leader David Cameron claimed yesterday that Matthews's actions were a "verdict on our broken society" and demonstrated the need for reforms of the welfare system which he said was "perhaps the toughest task ahead".

The Tories will today publish a policy document outlining radical changes which the party says are needed to help "socially immobile" families get out of a cycle of benefit dependency and educational failure.

The Government's own review of social workers is expected to see training schemes changed with more emphasis on "on-the-job" learning and the introduction of a new "qualifying year" in which new social workers will get hands-on experience before they qualify fully.

Ministers want to see chiefs of local authority children's services gain experience in schools and social work before they are appointed.

Mr Balls said social workers should be put on the same footing as the teaching profession, which has been "transformed" over the past 10 years. "The thing I want to do now is to do the same thing for social workers as we have done for teachers, to improve their training, to improve the quality of leadership, to improve the incentives for people who rise up through the system."

It is also expected that better-performing social workers will be paid more to work in "tough frontline areas". Mr Balls said: "In my view, the training of social workers is too theoretical. There isn't enough on-the-job training, We need our schools and our social workers to work more closely together, we need to boost leadership, there's lots to be done."

The proposals come after Haringey social services in north London were severely criticised in a damning report into the death of 17-month-old Baby P who suffered appalling abuse at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend and her lodger.

The council's leader and cabinet member for children resigned while director of children's services Sharon Shoesmith is suspended on full pay.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) new taskforce will be headed by chief executive of Camden Council and ex-social worker Moira Gibb.

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said real improvements could only achieved by learning the lessons from previous tragedies. "That means making public as much information as possible about what has gone wrong in the past, including publishing the serious case review from Haringey which currently remains secret," he said.

Liberal Democrat children's spokesman David Laws said: "While any additional training for social workers is welcome, this does rather sound like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted."