Social workers want to either scrap or reduce the continuing professional development (CPD) requirements for renewing registration in England, according to a recent poll.
This follows Social Work England’s announcement it will be reviewing its approach to registration renewal to ensure “the right balance between public protection, public confidence in the profession, and efficiency”.
As part of that, it will be reviewing relevance and feasibility of its current requirement for social workers to submit two pieces of CPD, one of which must have been reflected upon with a peer, to renew their registration each year.
Scaling down or scrapping CPD requirements
In a Community Care poll with over a thousand responses, the vast majority of respondents wanted CPD requirements to be reduced or removed.
The biggest group (45%) suggested making CPD a two- or three-year requirement, with 37% calling for it to be scrapped altogether and 10% backing reducing the number of annual submissions to one (10%).
Only 7% supported the status quo, with just 1% calling for an increase in the number of required submissions.
‘One CPD is enough’
Some social workers commenting on the related article also argued against the two pieces of CPD requirement.
“I don’t understand why social workers are required to complete two pieces of written documentation,” said Golam.
“It’s time-consuming. It proves we can write a mini essay. Medical professionals ask colleagues to answer questions about their performance. Isn’t that a more accurate gauge of whether we are competent and uphold standards?”
Golam was echoed by another practitioner, who said the requirement didn’t account for how busy social workers were.
“NHS staff do CPD once in three years,” they added.
Mark advocated for the submission form to include a text option with prompts, calling the current format, “with all the boxes”, demotivating.
Have your say
To inform its review, Social Work England has launched a short survey for social workers and individuals interested in the profession.
Part of the questionnaire asks respondents how far they see CPD as vital to maintaining professional standards in social work.
How would you improve the CPD process for renewing registration?
Celebrate those who’ve inspired you
Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock
For our 50th anniversary, we’re expanding our My Brilliant Colleague series to include anyone who has inspired you in your career – whether current or former colleagues, managers, students, lecturers, mentors or prominent past or present sector figures whom you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by either:
- Filling in our nominations form with a letter or a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
- Or sending a voice note of up to 90 seconds to +447887865218, including your and the nominee’s names and roles.
If you have any questions, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 
Hampshire County Council 
Oxfordshire County Council 
South Gloucestershire Council 
Wokingham Borough Council 
Webinar: building a practice framework with the influence of practitioner voice 
‘They don’t have to retell their story’: building long-lasting relationships with children and young people 
Podcast: returning to social work after becoming a first-time parent 
How managers are inspiring social workers to progress in their careers 
Workforce Insights – showcasing a selection of the sector’s top recruiters 
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Instagram
Will SWE listen and indeed heed Social Worker’s views as above? OkAfter all they are the ones who have been on the receiving end of SWE’s dictates regarding CPD requirements without then consultation with Social Workers
I made a Freedom of information request to Social Work England and I was horrified and shocked to learn that majority of those that review CPDs are not qualified social workers and have zero training in social work. I also learnt from the same Freedom of information request that those who carry out fitness for practice investigations are a mixture of professionals from other professions and a few qualified social workers. How can a person with no training in social work and has never knocked a door of vulnerable service users or a door of an aggressive parent carry out a credible investigation? How can a person with no social work qualification review our CDPs? Social Work England has many flaws and should be replaced with a social work run regulator. If you have been following the news the Nursing regulator has been accused of racism but I think Social work England has very many structural and oppressive issues that need to be looked into. SWE doesn’t know what they are doing and labour government needs to replace it immediately.
If SWE and their cheerleaders who pretend to have the interest of the public and better performance of social workers as their priority were sincere they would insist that every one of us got regular quality supervision. Why? Because good robust supervision holds a social worker to account for their practice in real time and by extension the safety of the public under constant vigilance. SWE nor our Leaders are actually committed to the rhetoric they articulate. Supervision is the only way social workers and our managers can be held accountable and the only way that high standard safety practice can happen. Not some piece of paper which isn’t even read properly by anyone let alone appraised.
Lee, you really deserve a 24 hour applause for that comment.
So agree with everything you say Rob
Authorities cutting back don’t have on the job training courses anymore. In terms of supervision and accountability managers are also at the bitter end and for me like many experienced social workers supervision is meaningless as our main problem is not having time to do our work.
100% agree, well said!!!!!
And SWE are now not going to routinely look at a sample of CPD, linked presumably to budget issues, or SWE have insufficient resources. Inadequate resources exactly explain why Social Workers are not able to fully do their job
I think the CPD should be either scrapped or reduced to 1 piece of work . Social workers are currently overworked with high caseloads with complex cases and we just don’t have time. We have monthly supervisions with managers where our practice is questioned
In my opinion it’s a complete waste of precious time. What does writing more prove. Outcomes?I write reports daily. Court reports. Assessments. I don’t see how explaining it is proving my profession. It’s a job we do. If doing cod essays every year proves anything it’s that extra kudos maybe? If that’s what you need. But if you’re still in social work and keeping the spinning plates from falling that’s proof you’re doing okay. What a load of nonsense cpd is honestly. And hand on heart, every one of my colleagues say the same. But they shut up and do it.
There is an inescapable irony to the situation where SWE are unable to make the samples they supposedly committed to doing as part of their remit as the regulator for the profession. According to them, “While we carry out this [review of CPD requirements] … individual CPD records will not be selected for review by independent assessors.” I wonder what their reaction might have been had social workers given them a response to say that whilst we are attending to our high numbers of complex caseloads, our individual CPD records will not be submitted for review…
CPD is entirely political as another tool to make SWs the scapegoats. Writing in repetitive boxes can support MPs rhetoric that ‘lessons will be learned’ and no more child deaths will occur.
Thank heavens we can all evidence how competent we are now and reassured that nothing untoward will happen on our watch since CPD requirements have increased..
It’s a waste of time especially as on the whole they’re not even read although general public are unlikely to be made aware of this in the media
When are Social Work England going to issue a statement about what lessons they have learned from the Rachel Meade industrial Tribunal. They were forced to pay exemplary damages for harassment against a social worker who expressed perfectly acceptable opinions about issues which social workers should be able to debate. We most not forget that we would not have had the Cass Review of it had not been for whistle-blowers at the Tavistock – one of which was a social worker. Social Work England should make a statement as spon as possible affirming the rights of social workers to take part in public debate.
Totally Agree. I have written to SWE on this issue last month and waiting on their response, though my letter has been acknowledged
Pay to register to be able to work .
Micromanaged daily , therefore CPD not needed.
Roll on retirement .
I have regular Supervision plus Direct Observations twice a year, so my Manager has awareness of my SW practice. Our service requests service user and professional feedback when cases are closing. I am currently undertaking PE 2 training and supervising a student. Plus as I work part-time, am involved in regular training and currently have 50 hours TOIL with little opportunity to take the time back. Trying to sort an issue out for Monday I have worked whilst on leave this week and have the added pressure of putting together the two pieces of CPD to be able to continue to practice as a social worker and will then pay £90 for the pleasure. The irony of more TOIL that I cannot take to complete the CPD does not escape me. I’m sure we’ve had more straightforward ways of capturing CPD in the past which in terms of continuing to develop professionally is a daily occurrence due to the nature of the work we do. I am aware that colleagues are feeling the same pressures.
Every year I stress about having to go through this exam-like process to prove I am worthy of the job I am being paid for these past 28 years or so. When I do finally find the time and motivation to complete the process (and pay the yearly prescription for the priviledge!)., all I get is ” your payment has been received^, folowed by, ” Your registration has been renewed”. I am a social worker within a unique service, Intensive Intervention and Risk Management Service, known as IRMS, I receive clinical and professional supervision from separate disciplines, the team has weekly peer group supervision, I fail to see the relevance or benefit of two pieces of unseen submissions every year at a cost to me.
I do hope that all of the above is passed to SWE to inform its review of its own CPD requirements
I suspect SWE has the same attitude towards the comments here as our PSW, namely that the articles are worth reading but the comments never as they are generally ill informed and “frankly” ignorant”.
It is so stressful. No other profession renews every year, but social workers. This is helping social workers to leave the profession to do something else. Just think about it
Cpd
1.refection on coercive control and sw, and lack of insight and training.
2 peer evaluation from heath colleague on my work practice in CHC meeting as a SW in DST meetings. Managing conflict, process and out comes.
3 domestic abuse. Where is the one third that are missing and why.
I have allways dislike Cpd,and the word gets tacked on to any training, meeting 》 learning.
Waiting till end November to see that like passover, the angels of scrutiny flown past,for another year,and my accountability is turned back to the day job and supervision and case progress and out come
The long arm of the SWE to pin jelly to the ceiling ,through conformity of task,meeting standards is good,but I know I can justify the critirea, in the diversity of submissions. But does that make me a good Sw.?.who knows.
Let face it,being top banana CpD submissions is not the same, as be be a good Sw as that is measured by so many factors that are out of our control. Public view,the family view and out come.
I hope my messure is more than vernier.
And, all as good as out last disaster.
I feel CPD is important especially because we are busy doing the job. It gives you time for self reflection in your own time. Sometimes it’s so fast paced, you don’t get that time to read a journal or article that brings valuable knowledge into practise. It was helpful for me when I was crossing over into a different field of social work. Things are changing all the time, it’s important to keep up to date with what’s new
As with most Social Workers I have done enough in my own time (50 hours + per week) without additional pay nor lieu time to compensate. If Local Authorities are serious about promoting staff professional development managers should this to be done within the contracted working week. This should extend to CPD requirements demanded by Social Work England. Time and again high caseloads needs to be looked at
My perspective may be of interest to some. I retain my SW registration having left a Head of Service Social Work role for a comparable, public sector role which also deals with safeguarding/risk about four years previously.
My registration has therefore not been required for four years, but I maintain it to keep options open and it has always been important to me.
The CPD is rather bizarre, adminsitrative process whereby I chose a free, LSCP course which I am able to attend, and write a short piece on what I’ve learnt from it; the proforma doesn’t seem to envisage that traning can not be very good (even if there’s a constructive write up of how the training wasn’t helpful or wasn’t evidence based etc).
So I always talk this up.
Reasonably, whilst the proforma is gearerd towards practicing social workers there’s literally no informaton about how I should strucutre this as an employed person working outside of social work.
As my current role invovles a great deal of safeguarding that’s not an issue in my specfic circumstances, but it would be problematic for many others.
As far as I can see, someone unemployed or working in a completely different role i.e. as an estate agent would be entitled to re-register but the process seems to make absolutely no sense in this regard, and one thinks the profession should be encouraging people to remain in practice.
For anyway not anyone no in paid employment and without access to relevant training the whole thing would be really difficult.
What I didn’t realise until this week as that if registration lapses then the process to re-register is far more onerous (scanning passports and certificates etc), and after two years necessairly would involve either a university-based return to practice course (there don’t seem to be that many of these) or some sort of unpaid social work work expierence with SWE offering no support in arranging this (which should take at least 210 hours! ‘Private study’ is an option but only for half the hours. This requirement is barely adveritsed unless you specfically search this information out. For many this would be literally impossible due to the time and logistical commitments. It seems inexcusable that people just have to stumble across this information rather than it being clearly outlined to Social Workers at the point of re-registration.
So I guess I will just continue this rather pointless cycle every year.
Social Workers and those depending on their services deserve much better.
We need to remember all the people whose practice is being investigated by SWE this year successfully submitted CPD last year! A clear indication that writing two pieces of work and peer reviews are meaningless to predict good practice.
We are all so busy in my team that trying to make time to do CPD adds additional stress to an already stressful work environment. It is a pointless meaningless exercise that doesn’t demonstrate nothing other than we can do an academic piece of writing that we all have already shown in order to become social workers in the first place.
Since our department canned all external training ten years ago my CPD has been complete rubbish. Once up a time I listed courses I’d been on, things I’d learnt and certificates I’d earnt. Now I put I ‘reflected’ on a case and discussed it with colleagues. What’s the point?
Social Work England, are you listening? You previously imposed CPD without any consultation with front-line Social Workers. Now heed these views as above
I am no longer working for a LA and do not have a caseload
I am lucky, in so far as, I am still involved with social work as PE2, so have something to use for my CPD, but doing it yearly is over and above what is needed to ensure a persons ability to be fit to practice.
I agree that every 2 or 3 years is enough to be able to provide quality information, rather than putting together something every year, which would not identify the work anyone does property.
I work with nurses, who do theirs every 3 years.
If someone if not fit to practice this should be identified through supervision or feedback from colleagues or service users.
The requirement to ensure all social workers are fit to practice is on all of us.