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Quarter of social workers had completed registration requirements with one month to go

Completion levels have caught up with 2023 rates following slower start to renewal process, as Social Work England urges remaining practitioners to renew well before 30 November deadline

By on November 8, 2024 in Workforce
November 30 written on a calendar to remind you an important appointment.
Photo: xtock/Adobe Stock

A quarter of social workers had met the requirements to renew their registration in England with one month left of the renewal period, the regulator has revealed.

This means completion levels have caught up with the rates seen in 2023 following a slower start to the process this year, which saw 8% meet the requirements by the end of September.

Social Work England welcomed the level of progress but urged practitioners who have not yet completed the renewal process to do so well before the 30 November 2024 deadline.

Renewal requirements

Just over 104,000 social workers – those who were registered before 1 September – must renew their registration by 30 November 2024 if they want to retain their right to practise as a social worker in England. To do this, they must:

  • submit their registration renewal application form;
  • pay their £90 registration fee (though most social workers do this through a direct debit paid on 1 October and 1 April);
  • record a minimum of two different pieces of continuing professional development (CPD), one of which must include include a reflection carried out with a peer.

As of 31 October 2024, 24.3% – 25,319 social workers – had met the requirements, compared with 25% at the same time in 2023.

Just over a third (36,794) had submitted a completed renewal form, of whom 11,444 had not met all of the CPD requirements.

Social workers who have registered since 1 September 2024 only have to pay their registration fee by the 30 November deadline. Of this group, 54.1% (967) had done so as of 31 October 2024, also a similar level of progress to 2023.

Regulator urges completion well before 30 November

Social Work England’s executive director of regulation, Philip Hallam, said that practitioners who completed the renewal process by 12 November would receive confirmation from the regulator that they had completed the process on the following day.

“With less than four weeks until the end of the registration renewal, social workers wishing to renew their application should log in well ahead of the deadline to complete the registration renewal application process to avoid a last minute rush, or the possibility of being removed from the register after 30 November,” he added.

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2 Responses to Quarter of social workers had completed registration requirements with one month to go

  1. Tahin November 9, 2024 at 9:17 am #

    No need to panic, there’s always one minute to midnight on the last day. (Repeat ad nauseum next year and if the wilting uselessness that passes for a regulator is still around than every year. The desperation in the process was tragedy, became a farce and now is an irrelevance sustained only by the threat to livelihoods.)

  2. David November 10, 2024 at 7:13 am #

    I really do hope that Social Work England reads and takes note of Social Workers’ expressed remarks on the registration process and the requirements of written CPD submissions to inform its review of the same.