Social workers are to be allowed to opt out of the proposed assisted dying process, the legislation’s sponsor has pledged.

Labour’s Kim Leadbeater has promised to work with fellow MPs to amend her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to ensure practitioners other than health professionals are allowed not to participate.

While social workers were originally not part of the bill’s process for assisted dying, they have been added to it through amendments made by Leadbeater during its recently-concluded committee stage.

Social workers to be involved in assisted dying panels

Under this, a panel comprising a senior lawyer, a psychiatrist and a social worker would consider requests for an assisted death that had been already signed off by two doctors, to check whether the statutory requirements had been met. These include that the person:

• has an inevitably progressive illness and is expected not to live beyond a further six months;
• has capacity to make the decision to end their life;
• has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their life;
• made the initial declaration that they wanted to end their life voluntarily and was not coerced or pressured into making it.

However, as the bill stands, only doctors and other health professionals have the right to not participate in helping a person to die and protection from detriment from their employer should they decide to opt out.

Lobbying from BASW

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) had lobbied for social workers to be similarly covered and welcomed Leadbeater’s pledge, given last week, to introduce an amendment to that effect.

In a debate at the committee stage on 18 March, Conservative MP and prominent bill critic Danny Kruger put forward an amendment that would have extended the so-called opt-out provision to anyone potentially involved and in relation to any part of the assisted dying process.

He highlighted social workers’ current omission and quoted written evidence from BASW.

In response, Leadbeater said: “I would like to get it on the record that I agree with him: there should be no duty on any person to take part in the Bill’s provisions if they choose not to, for whatever reason. I will struggle to support his amendment because there are other issues with it, but on that principle I wholeheartedly agree, and I would be happy to work with him in sorting it out, before report, to that effect.”

This means she will devise an amendment to extend the so-called “conscience clause” more broadly to be considered at the next stage of the bill’s passage through the House of Commons, the so-called report stage.

‘A vital step towards parity between social workers and health professionals’

In response, a BASW spokesperson said: “BASW has engaged significantly with MPs on the assisted dying proposals since they were introduced to parliament, ensuring that social work’s role and voice is understood and represented throughout the process.

“Social workers not being included in the conscience clause in the initial drafting of the legislation was a serious omission that we have been raising with policy-makers since day one. It is paramount that all professionals potentially involved should be able to opt out of work relating to assisted dying without detriment.

“We were therefore pleased that MPs on the committee listened to our calls and gave their assurance that an amendment to this effect will now be brought forward. It is a vital step toward ensuring parity of legal protections between social workers, other non-healthcare professionals, and medical practitioners.”

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Labour has returned to power with an overwhelming victory in the 2024 general election.

The party has won 412 seats, giving it a majority in the House of Commons of 174.

Keir Starmer has become Labour’s first prime minister since Gordon Brown left office in 2010 and is now appointing his cabinet. Wes Streeting has become health and social care secretary, with responsibility for adult social care, and Bridget Phillipson education secretary, with oversight of children’s services, reprising the equivalent roles to the ones they took in opposition.

Stephen Kinnock has been made minister for care, with responsibility for adults’ services in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), while the government is yet to confirm who will oversee children’s social care in the Department for Education. It could be former social worker Janet Daby.

The party has been elected on a manifesto that did not reference to social work and made relatively limited commitments on social care, none of which was funded.

It has also pledged not to raise income tax rates, national insurance or VAT and to stick to tight fiscal rules, including being on course to reduce public debt as a share of national income over the medium term. As a result, it has very limited scope to raise public spending.

Call to prioritise social work

However, in the wake of Labour’s long-expected triumph, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and Social Workers Union (SWU) called for early discussions with the new government so social workers and those they support are “at the forefront of [its] plans from day one”.

BASW chief executive Ruth Allen (credit: BASW)

“We acknowledge that the new government faces significant challenges and will have desperately difficult decisions to make,” said BASW chief executive Ruth Allen.

“However, the problems our profession and society face run deep, and requires bold and immediate actions to address. It really is time to get it right.

“From better resourcing of social work and funding of social care, to measures that alleviate poverty, reform mental health provision, protect human rights, and much more. Ministers must hit the ground running, and BASW will be working hard to influence and hold them to account.”

John McGowan, Social Workers Union (photo: Simon Hadley)

For the SWU, general secretary John McGowan said: “Social work has been at the sharp end of poor political choices that have plunged our profession into a recruitment and retention crisis and led to a decline in working conditions, while simultaneously increasing demand on services as communities become worse off.

“We hear from members everyday about the toll this is taking, and the buck stops at those in power with the responsibility to fix it. This is the strong case we’ll be making to the new government over the days, weeks and months ahead.”

Priorities for adult social care

In its first message to the new government, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services set out three priorities for adult social care.

“Three key issues we believe the government must prioritise are the need to improve the pay, terms and conditions of the social care workforce; provide improved support to unpaid carers; and to provide care closer to home so that those drawing on care can live the lives they want in their own homes and communities,” said ADASS chief executive Anna Hemmings.

For the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), chief executive Rhidian Hughes said: “The government faces significant challenges ahead, including putting social care on a surer footing, addressing the cost-of-living crisis, which is disproportionately impacting disabled people, and addressing the national scandal of autistic people and people with a learning disability being detained in long-stay hospitals.

“Only by prioritising the provision of high-quality support for disabled people of all ages, will we have a fairer society where everyone is able to thrive.”

‘Urgent’ need to invest in and reform adult social care

Meanwhile, independent care provider representative body Care England said the new administration needed to “invest in and reform [adult social care] as an urgent priority”.

“There are practical measures the new government must implement within its first 100 days to secure a sustainable future for our sector,” said its chief executive, Martin Green.

The Homecare Association, which represents domiciliary care providers, said there was a need for a “care revolution”.

“We’re not just talking about tweaking the system,” said its chief executive Jane Towson. “We need a complete transformation. Yes, we’ll harness AI and robots, but let’s not forget the irreplaceable human touch. We need smart tech and even smarter policies.”

“Labour now has the chance to rewrite the rules of care. Let’s create a system that’s as innovative as it is compassionate, as efficient as it is empathetic. Supporting people at home must be at the heart of government policy”.

‘Need for system fit for the 21st century’

For the Social Care Institute for Excellence, chief executive Kathryn Smith said: “More people are requesting support, but fewer are getting the help they need. With demand increasing, local authorities do not have the money to meet it and staff numbers are not keeping pace.”

She added: “A social care system fit for the 21st century is in the national interest and the formidable challenges facing the social care sector cannot be a justification for inaction.

“The cornerstone of future policy change ought to be co-producing solutions with people with lived experience, their families and carers, as well as care providers. Only an inclusive, collaborative approach will improve the efficacy and sustainability of any policy change.”

‘£6bn funding gap’

The Local Government Association (LGA) welcomed the new government with a reference to the £6.2bn gap it has calculated councils face over the next two years between the resources they have and what they need to maintain services at existing levels. 

Much of this is driven by adults’ and children’s social care pressures, according to the LGA.

“It is important we find a sustainable and long term financial solution, as well as the powers and levers required so we can deliver on the priorities of the new government,” said new LGA chair Louise Gittins.

Tackling children’s social care pressures is ‘urgent challenge’

The financial pressures facing councils, including in relation to social care, were also referenced by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) in its response to the election result.

“For too long children’s needs, their rights and outcomes have not been prioritised and for too long councils have been severely underfunded in the face of rising levels of need and costs,” said ADCS president Andy Smith.

“A growing number of councils are effectively bankrupt, or dangerously close to this and many vital and valued services, including services that help children and families before they reach crisis point, are at risk.”

Smith added: “The new government has many urgent challenges to address. This must include the crisis in local government funding, growing pressures in children’s social care and the SEND system and huge challenges facing children’s mental health. “

Our interview with Wayne Reid is part of a series of profiles of key figures who have shaped social work over the past five decades, to mark Community Care’s 50th anniversary. Previous interviewees include Eileen Munro, Herbert Laming, and June Thoburn.

In 2021, Wayne Reid became the first anti-racism visionary at the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). In this role, he spearheaded several initiatives to tackle racism in the profession and provide safe spaces for Black and ethnic minority practitioners.

Over the years, he has written extensively about anti-racist practice and authored resources to influence organisational practice and policy for systemic and lasting change.

For Community Care’s 50^th anniversary, Reid recounted his experiences as a Black social worker, the role of George Floyd’s murder in his anti-racism advocacy and the need to change organisations’ responses to racism in the workplace.

A long journey into social work

Wayne Reid

Reid’s journey to becoming a social worker was not straightforward.

He was introduced to a career in social care when he became a placement officer at an independent fostering agency (IFA) in 1998, at the age of 18.

The experience sparked a desire in him to pursue a career in supporting foster families as a supervising social worker. However, he could not afford to train to become a social worker at the time.

So, he continued to take on roles that aligned with his passion, including with the national probation service and Sheffield City Council’s youth offending team.

It was a decade after that first role, in 2008, that Sheffield recognised his ambition and sponsored him to undertake a social work degree at the Open University, while working full-time in a care leavers’ service.

Upon his graduation, in 2010, he began working at an IFA as a supervising social worker, finally achieving his decade-long dream.

Experiences of racism as a practitioner

Yet working in social work was far from perfect.

During his time as a new practitioner, Reid experienced covert organisational and systemic racism. He says:

[I] was undermined, scapegoated, overlooked for career progression on occasions and seen as a diversity hire.”

“I have been faced with jealousy and accused of being a ‘careerist’. [Once], a white academic said to me in utter disbelief: ‘You speak better English than I do’.”

Comments like those highlight the entrenched everyday racism that exists in the social work workplace.

Seemingly harmless banter and statements that have a racial undertone point to a lack of awareness and sensitivity about racism and the experiences of Black and ethnic minority practitioners, Reid says now.

Although he did not experience much overt racism while working in frontline roles, a memory that comes back to him is of a foster family who “were outraged when I was allocated as their social support worker”.

“They made it clear that they didn’t like me, and they colluded with other foster carers to undermine my decision making and practice.”

But when it was time to part ways a couple of years later, the family admitted that Reid’s work had both made them a better foster family and helped them recognise their own assumptions and biases.

“Moments like that made the hard times worthwhile for me,” says Reid.

The Black & Ethnic Minority Professionals Symposium

However, it was the murder of George Floyd in 2020 that sparked Reid’s anti-racism advocacy and work.

During the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, as part of his work as the professional officer and then-anti-racism visionary at BASW, he formed the Black & Ethnic Minority Professionals Symposium (BPS).

The group, he says, provides a safe space for Black and ethnic minority social workers to offload and generate strategies to tackle the challenges they face as professionals.

He commemorated the first anniversary of Floyd’s murder with a report documenting the actions taken by social work organisations from 2020-21 to tackle racism, providing strategies organisations can replicate.

Through BPS, in 2022, he also published the relational and anti-racist supervision form, developed by social worker and trainer Shabnam Ahmed.  This is designed to promote an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory approach to supervision that also supports practitioners’ wellbeing.

According to Reid, the approach has been successfully adopted by social work practitioners, students, managers and practice educators across England.

“Using the supervision template really helped me think about identity and encouraged me to be curious about the wholeness of the person in front of me,” said the head of a family support and complex families team.

They added: “[It pushed me] to explore and understand what it is like to be them, doing this role, their stories and biographies and all the ways those things intersect.”

In another example, the supervision template was described as a “transforming and empowering” experience by a student, “helping them to amplify their voice and highlight their supervision needs”.

The student added: “The template captures what the person is going through, allowing for an understanding of them as a person. It brings a human element of being and has changed the nature of the supervision to one of learning from each other and articulating feelings.”

Sharing news about anti-racist practice

The resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement following Floyd’s death also inspired  Reid to start a newsletter, called Wayne’s Weekly, to help inform social workers about racial justice and anti-racist practice.

The newsletter ran until December 2023 and recipients provided positive feedback about it, particularly in relation to raising awareness about racism in the workplace, in response to a survey last year.

One social worker said: “I like that you bring together information and widen access to resources that I may not have found myself without a lot of effort – which I don’t have time for.

“This relates especially to anti-racist stuff that you bring and has helped me massively in making steps to critically check my own practice and acknowledge that racism exists in social work.”

Another noted the best part of the newsletter was the “resources and opportunities, particularly those relating to anti-discriminatory practice (and positive-discriminatory opportunities) that don’t get the same profile in other social care bulletins”.

‘Everyone has a duty to combat racism’

For Reid, to have real change in society, it is “imperative” for individuals to acknowledge “the intrinsic and inherent” nature of white privilege.

Recognising this involves an understanding that the onus to tackle racism in the profession cannot only be on Black and ethnic minority social workers.

“Everyone has a duty to combat racism and other forms of discrimination in the spaces they occupy,” says Reid.

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Would you like to write about a day in your life as a social worker? Do you have any stories, reflections or experiences from working in social work that you’d like to share or write about?

If so, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

This, he adds, includes reporting incidents of racism when they occur, forming like-minded alliances with peers to tackle key issues, raising awareness and making suggestions for positive reform.

In addition to individual efforts, changing organisational policies and response to instances of racism is one of the biggest challenges to initiating lasting change, but crucial to address, says Reid.

‘Tokenistic’ organisational responses

Over the years he’s observed that one of the most common ways for organisations to respond to racial inequality is through silence until “stuff blows over”.

“This type of organisational response usually commends staff for being resilient and deflects attention away from the essential redesign of systems that routinely make people suffer,” he says.

“This response not only fails to move towards being anti-racist, but also reinforces the perception and prevalence of white privilege for many people of colour.”

Other examples he’s encountered include “sympathetic and non-committal statements” or proposals of “minor changes to already vague policies with little or no accountability”.

Reid deems such approaches “well-intended” but still “tokenistic, [overlooking] the nuanced obstacles that people of colour face every day”.

Instead, he suggests setting recruitment targets to employ Black and ethnic minority senior leaders, having in place peer-led support groups for those who have experienced workplace trauma associated with racism (and other types of discrimination) and training all staff in anti-racist practice.

He cites Durham County Council as a good example of a local authority promoting anti-racist practice.

The council has developed an anti-racist practice hub, with resources for staff to access, and has a network for Black and ethnic minority employees, which holds regular wellbeing sessions and discussions with leaders about inclusive policies and practice.

Similarly, Reid acknowledges the work of Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in providing leadership mentoring for staff from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds and regular training for staff in race equality.

Vision for the future

Looking forward, Reid believes organisations need to address the overwhelming lack of “anti-discriminatory, anti-oppressive and anti-racist” values and policies in education, training and professional standards.

Social Work England’s professional standards require registered social workers to “challenge the impact of disadvantage and discrimination” and  “promote social justice, helping to confront and resolve issues of inequality and inclusion”.

But these apply to practitioners, not to leaders (unless registered) or organisations.

For real progress, Reid says that “we need senior social work leaders and major organisations to take more accountability and responsibility towards implementing anti-racist policies and practising them within the social work landscape”.

However, despite the challenges in the sector, he believes social work to be an “exciting space for aspiring professionals to drive change”.

He advises anyone starting out to “be resilient, identify suitable mentors and role models, be self-aware, incorporate feedback” and not be “deterred by rejection”.

“I’d like to think there’s been some progress in terms of what we’ve been able to do to shape policy, practice and education,” he adds.

“There are lots of people in the space that I’ve worked with, people who are doing fantastic and trailblazing work and I am sure the next generation of social workers will make an equally impactful mark in the sector.”

Who would you like Community Care to interview next for our 50th anniversary?

Our interview with Ruth Allen is part of a series of profiles of key figures who have shaped social work over the past five decades, to mark Community Care’s 50th anniversary. Previous interviewees include Eileen Munro, Herbert Laming, and June Thoburn.

Ruth Allen has spent the past eight years as chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), providing leadership and representation to members from all parts of the profession.

But before that, her focus was squarely on mental health social work.

Having practised in mental health settings after qualifying in the 1990s, she went on to become director of social work in two NHS Trusts.

Then, in 2012, she became chair of the mental health faculty at The College of Social Work, the body set up to provide leadership for the profession, which closed in 2015 after the government withdrew funding and it was unable to sustain itself.

Most recently, she was elected president of the International Federation of Social Workers Europe, the regional division of the profession’s global body.

Speaking to Community Care, Allen reflected on the evolution of mental health practice within social work, the lack of shared knowledge across services and BASW’s impact under her leadership.

BASW chief executive Ruth Allen (credit: BASW)

How has mental health social work evolved over recent years?

I think there is an acceptance that if you’re working in social work, you need to have an understanding of mental health, whether you’re working with children, adults or older adults.

There’s been quite a resurgence over the past 20 years in the importance of qualifying and ongoing training in mental health and a recognition of what social work brings to mental health services in integrated settings and teams.

But there’s still quite a long way to go to develop the knowledge and basic skills needed to work well with mental distress disorders.

What would you describe as those basic skills?

The first thing is that all social workers should be confident addressing mental health topics, whether that’s with adults, parents or even children. Obviously, when talking with children, you probably need some additional training to do that, but you need to first have confidence to raise the issue.

I know people who trained around the same time as me who didn’t know how to have conversations about mental health and wellbeing.

Then it’s the skill to listen and recognise that, if there’s an authentic and trusting relationship with those you support, it’s easier to talk freely.

In the process of becoming a registered professional, sometimes you take on a mantle of professionalism. This often includes putting distance between you and the people you’re working with, in the name of objectivity and using evidence. I don’t think I was too badly affected by that but I know some people are – they become stiff in their professionalism.

But it’s the relationship you build that is the crucible of where change happens and people start addressing their issues. You have to have a lot of skill, resilience and knowledge, but also the ability to build relationships.

You were chair of The College of Social Work’s mental health faculty. What is its legacy?

Although the College didn’t last, I think the work that came out of its faculties – children’s, adults’ and mental health – had a subsequent life.

At the mental health faculty, we were able to do a range of things to bring a spotlight on mental health. I really was very pleased because it was needed.

We worked on a document called The role of the social worker in adult mental health services, which defined what it was to be a mental health practitioner and ended up being quite influential. I am now working with colleagues to review and revise this.

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Would you like to write about a day in your life as a social worker? Do you have any stories, reflections or experiences from working in social work that you’d like to share or write about?

If so, email our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com

This was at a time when we were still trying to help the integrated NHS and local authority mental health services adapt to the Care Act 2014. There was still a sense of, ‘What is it that social workers do?’.

So we created the document to help with that. It was well-informed and well-evidenced.

We launched it in Parliament, and it was supported by Lyn Romeo [then chief social worker for adults] and the then care minister, Norman Lamb. It bridged the gap between political leadership, senior social work leadership and social workers on the ground.

It also ended up being the basis for other guidance, like Social work for better mental health, a government strategy to improve mental health social work and raise its profile within the sector.

How integrated is mental health social work across settings?

NHS organisations are now recruiting more social workers directly into the NHS because they recognise that they bring a holistic approach.

There’s a recognition that there is a spectrum of skills that social workers bring which is distinctive. This includes an understanding of social context and the structural and systemic problems people face.

But I would like to see more mental health expertise being shared across the sector.

Social work around adults with mental health disorders has grown in recognition, knowledge and skills. They’ve had some more investment. Yet mental health knowledge hasn’t been integrated very well into wider practice. For instance, there are big differences between how adults, young people, children and the elderly are approached when it concerns mental health. The models are so different.

In a way, the role of social work in children and adolescent mental health services has actually declined and could benefit from more skill development.

That is partly because of one of the other significant problems that we have now – the division between adults’ and children’s services, which is right at government department and local level in England.

Why is the division between adults’ and children’s services such an issue?

Westminster government introduced separate directors for adults’ and children’s services in the 2000s and divided child and family and adult social work at government department level.

My experience on the ground is that professionals and the different specialists will do whatever they can to try and create relationships and close the gap.

But social work services are so pressed now, you’ve got different legislation when working with adults and children.

With the best will in the world, very busy social workers can’t go around making all the connections. At points of transition, particularly between children and adults services, there are huge differences in practices and the resources available.

What was your vision for BASW when you joined?

My vision was for BASW to be a strong independent voice for social work and to consolidate and improve the services that we provided to members.

I also wanted to do some myth-busting about what BASW was and wasn’t. We’re not a trade union, we are a professional body. We are interested not only in supporting practitioners, but in developing social work and influencing change on things like inequality. We set our new mission after I joined.

I spent a few years sorting out internal and external issues and modernising our communications and press work, particularly regarding our professional development offer. So we constantly go back to our members and non-members and ask, ‘What do you want from us?’. That is still ongoing.

What are some obstacles you’ve faced as chief executive?

I think one of the obstacles is the issue of funding and investment in social work at the moment. I think we do a good job helping people stay in social work because we are a place that people can go to for coaching, as well as formal advice and solidarity and a sense of belonging.

But it is very tough out there. The pressure of workload and resources that people are under is an obstacle – to best practice and to people making choices in their own best interests.

We would like to see more co-operation across the board to find coherent solutions for social work and social care. But sometimes it feels like we’re all pulling in different directions.

The public and political support and press coverage of social work has also improved broadly over the years. But there needs to be more consistent noticing of what social workers do – a fair portrayal, telling the good stories as well as the bad ones.

That’s why we’ve created the BASW Social Work Journalism Awards.

What are your proudest achievements at BASW?

Our campaigns have been really important, especially the collaborative work on working conditions and social work experiences, with the Social Workers Union and Professor Jermaine Ravalier (now of Buckinghamshire New University).

While we didn’t change the Illegal Migration Act 2023 [the government legislation designed to deny asylum to anyone deemed to have entered the UK illegally], we’ve been a strong force in that area.

Our efforts on migration, the retention of the Human Rights Act and the “homes not hospitals” deinstitutionalization work [regarding people with learning disabilities and autistic people] in England has been powerful. There are many campaign activities to be proud of.

Our strength as a campaigning voice also relies on our internal strength. During Covid-19, we moved our entire operation online within a week and became a strong presence for social work. We gathered social workers’ perspectives and provided additional support services quickly.

It helped us reach so many people because we were a visible and human presence during a really terrible time for many people.

That’s probably helped with getting core participant status now in the Covid inquiry. We are the main social work voice in the inquiry as an organisation.

What would you like to see change in social work?

I would like to see social work more united, having a collective, strong voice and more influence on our politicians and decision makers, beyond the public.

It’s also important as a profession that we can communicate with different parts of the sector and learn from each other.

There needs to be a credible, long-term investment programme in social work and social services in England to restore the confidence of practitioners.

I think social workers are absolutely remarkable with what they’re continuing to achieve, but we are falling behind other nations. That needs to be turned around for the sake of everybody.

I’d just like to see social workers become more influential so that we can use our values and our knowledge in policy everywhere.

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Hundreds of social workers in England are being “left in limbo”, often unable to work, because of long and increasing delays in fitness to practise (FTP) cases.

That was the warning from the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), Social Workers Union (SWU) and UNISON in a joint statement yesterday setting out their “significant concerns” about Social Work England’s operation of the FTP system.

The bodies, who each represent tens of thousands of social workers, were responding to an admission from the regulator in February that average FTP case lengths would increase from just over two years, currently, during 2024-25.

This was because Social Work England had to reduce FTP final hearing numbers to manage a projected budget overspend in 2023-24, and also due to the high likelihood that its 2024-25 budget settlement from the Department for Education would be insufficient to increase the number of hearings.

BASW, SWU and UNISON said they worked collaboratively with Social Work England and had raised the issue of FTP delays in their regular stakeholder meetings with the regulator in order to resolve the issue.

‘Hundreds of social workers left in limbo’

However, they added: “The time has now come for swift action, as hundreds of social workers are currently left in limbo.”

This exerted an “intolerable and unfair” toll on these practitioners’ mental health, which led some to stop working because of “unmanageable” distress.

Others were unable to work because employers did not consider them for roles when they learned they were subject to an FTP investigation. This was even the case when practitioners were not subject to interim orders placing restrictions on their practice or suspending them altogether, said BASW, SWU and UNISON.

They called on Social Work England to divert resources to FTP, including by simplifying the “laborious and obstructive” approach to registration renewal and making this biennial, rather than yearly.

They also warned Social Work England against raising the fee practitioners pay to register, which has been fixed at £90 a year since the regulator’s inception in December 2019, but which the regulator has said it would review between 2023 and 2026.

Regulator criticised for ‘adversarial approach’

However, while BASW, SWU and UNISON acknowledged that Social Work England had received more cases than expected since 2019, they also claimed delays were driven, in part, by the regulator investigating too many cases and taking an “adversarial” approach.

There were “many examples” of cases that progressed beyond the triage stage when there was “no reasonable reason for them to do so”, said the bodies. At triage, Social Work England determines whether there are reasonable grounds to investigate the social worker’s fitness to practise.

Then, at the investigations stage, the regulator “in almost all cases” only sought evidence supporting the allegation against the registrant, they said. Information that could clear the social worker was “not considered or overlooked” even when drawn to the attention of investigators, the bodies added.

What BASW, SWU and UNISON want to see

“This has the effect of cases progressing that do not need to, taking up significant resources, the very problem that leads to delay at all stages,” said BASW, SWU and UNISON.

They called on the regulator to ensure investigations were “more collaborative and thorough” and update training and guidance for case examiners. These FTP staff determine, following investigation, whether there is a realistic prospect that the concerns about the registrant could be proved and, if so, whether their fitness to practise may be found impaired.

Such revised guidance for case examiners should ensure examiners “make assessments from a neutral, less combative position, taking into account contextual factors”.

BASW, SWU and UNISON also called on the regulator to “develop alternative outcomes” for cases where the person has been awaiting a final hearing for multiple years and “adopt a more reasonable approach to voluntary removal”.

Call for urgent discussions

This is the process by which the regulator decides whether to accept a person subject to FTP proceedings’ request to be removed from the register, which is based on whether there is a public interest in the fitness to practise case continuing.

The three organisations sent the statement to Social Work England on 25 April, along with a letter in which they asked for “urgent and progressive discussions…to address the issues we have raised”.

Social Work England responded to them on 3 May, and has now published this response on its website (see box below). 

In this, it said it looked forward to meeting with BASW, SWU and UNISON to further discuss the issues.

By Upasana Rajagopalan

Denise Monks’s passion for social justice is evident not only in her work now as a professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers, but also her beginnings in the sector.

While working at Stockport Council in 2002, just a few years after qualifying, she noticed a gap in support for parents with learning disabilities. So she created a specialist team to bridge it.

She developed resources for children’s social workers to communicate effectively with these parents and inspired a culture change that lasted even after the team was dissolved.

The team’s work was referenced in 2007 government good practice guidelines on working with parents with learning disabilities (since updated by the Working Together with Parents Network).

Speaking to Community Care, Denise talked about the lack of specialist support in place for parents with learning disabilities and what needs to be done to ensure lasting change.

What sparked your interest in the learning disability sector?

My first role post-qualification was as a social worker in a multidisciplinary learning disability team. I loved that job because it helped me have a positive influence on people’s day-to-day lives.

Three out of my five years there were working specifically with parents with learning disabilities.

I was working with two parents with learning disabilities who had two children removed from their care, with a new baby on the way, which was also later removed.

They had been known to children’s services for several years but before I was allocated to the case, they had never received support as adults in their own right.

The inequality inherent in the way they were treated was quite evident.”

These parents had not been afforded the support to develop the parenting skills they needed to care for their children. They were being assessed with the methods used for families where parents did not have a learning disability.

They were at a disadvantage, and that sparked a bit of a fight in me as that was not fair.

What led you to create a team specialising in helping parents with learning disabilities?

Myself and a colleague [a learning disability nurse] worked with the family for two years, and in the process realised that numerous other families were in similar situations.

That led us to want to specialise in working with parents with learning disabilities.

We were seeing a lack of understanding in terms of communication with adults with learning disabilities.

A lot of these individuals managed their daily lives fine while they just had themselves to care for.

But once the baby was introduced into the situation, it added a level of complexity. They did not have the skills and the support networks in place to adapt quickly enough to meet the child’s needs.

Moreover, assessments were undertaken in the same way that they would be for somebody who didn’t have a learning disability, which meant that there were no reasonable adjustments made for the parents.

So we presented this to our managers and set up a team. We started working with parents with learning disabilities, including those who were at risk of losing their children, as well as midwives.

What initiatives were taken by the team to support parents?

Pictured: Denise Monks

In most cases, it was about addressing simple things, such as social workers feeling the families were not engaging because they were never at home when the social worker was due to call.

This was a time before people had smartphones. So in many instances, letters were sent to families to say they had an appointment with their social worker next week at a specific time.

What we discovered was they often couldn’t tell the time or could not keep track of time and many of them couldn’t read the letters that were being sent. So it wasn’t that they were not engaging with the social workers, but more a case of communication gaps.

We started to support the social workers in terms of different strategies they could use. We suggested ringing up the parents to tell them when [the social workers] would arrive or refer to the start or end of a TV programme to indicate a time.

We also developed specific resources to help the families with pre-birth work. Before, they were issued with generic material, with no real consideration of the difficulties they faced with things as simple as making the bottles for the child or how to keep them clean.

We worked jointly with the parents and the midwives to develop little books with visual aids about what was expected of them when caring for their child.

Back then, 20 years ago, we also developed a parenting programme. As part of the model, we started to directly deliver parenting classes specifically for parents with learning disabilities.

So it was piece by piece, trying to get to the stage we needed to be.

What were some of the challenges the team faced?

Even though we helped many children stay with their parents, there were times when this was not possible.

Even with all the support, sometimes the parents could not care for their children and it was not appropriate for the child to stay.

That was very difficult for us, as it was because of our evidence that the child wasn’t with the family.”

In most cases, we continued to work with those parents.

We felt humbled and blessed because they allowed us to continue supporting them through the court case, and to help them keep in touch with their children and cope with grief and bereavement.

How did the initiatives taken by the team affect practice in children and families teams?

Over time, the children’s social workers started to see where we were coming from. A culture change was initiated as they became really supportive in terms of what we did.

Even when the service started to wind down, the children and families’ teams continued to use some of the tools we had implemented.

These included working with the charity Change to develop a parenting guide for children aged up to one year. The guide was an easy-to-read version of the information that health visitors gave out to all new parents.

We purchased the software for the parent assessment manual (PAMS) assessments and developed additional pictorial resources, such as booklets containing pictures of the local maternity suite and ultrasound scans to prepare expectant mothers.

We also worked in partnership with our local school nurses, who allowed us to periodically borrow their virtual babies. The exercise was similar to today’s baby infant simulators, which use a mechanical baby doll to develop skills around parenting and early childhood.

It was a positive development to see the teams continue to use these tools.

What led to the end of the support team for parents with learning disabilities?

While working in the team 20 years back, we worked with one of the government departments to research the cost of providing long-term support to a child and supporting the parents at specific times of the child’s life.

Evidence suggested that lifetime support, where appropriate, was more financially viable for the state than going through the process of having the child removed, placed in foster care and then put through the adoption process.

Unfortunately, there was no target set by the government and as the country entered into the years of austerity and budget cuts, the ability to continue the personalised support for parents with learning disabilities started to ebb.

My colleague left to become a health visitor and I was the only person on the team with that specialism.

And bit by bit, other kinds of work came my way. I was given a lot of safeguarding [work] that was not around parents, and the service started to wind down.

Twenty years on, what are your thoughts on the support available to parents with learning disabilities? Is enough being done?

There is a lot of research undertaken in universities like Bristol and Bath regarding this. However, things have not changed over the past 20 years.

Our team’s work was referenced in the [government’s] good practice guidelines and many social workers and psychologists often get in touch to find out more about what we did. But this remains at an individual level in a local area. And once those people who are passionate leave, the service starts to wind down.

This happens firstly because there is no dedicated government funding for it, and no targets or initiatives to push for.

Secondly, with limited budgets for learning disability teams, the work is pushed onto the children and families teams, who may not have the expertise to support parents with learning disabilities.

The other reason is that parents themselves may not have had a formal assessment and diagnosis of learning disabilities, which can make it difficult for them to access services.

Unfortunately, I would say things have gone backwards because local areas don’t have the same funding and ability to be creative as before.”

Even when there are passionate and talented people who want to make a change, they are not afforded the same freedom and opportunities that my colleague and I had back in the day.

What changes would you like to see in social work in the coming years?

Our communities need long-term reinvestments. Local authorities and community groups are funded on a 12-monthly basis, and sometimes that funding might not be beyond that period.

That is not good enough if we need to build stable communities.

I think how central government funding is fed into our local communities must change so that we have longevity and can truly grow those initiatives. Otherwise, the fatigue of always being in the start-up phase depletes trust in the system and initiatives have no lasting impact.

Any last few words reflecting on your journey in social work?

Given this is Community Care’s anniversary, and I have also turned 50, I do look at that era and feel blessed about being a social worker because I had the freedom and opportunity to initiate change.

I feel that we have such a wealth of talent and tenacity in terms of the social workers that are coming through now and the social workers that are still out there.

That is something to be proud of and that inspires hope for the future.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) England has become the headline sponsor of the Social Worker of the Year Awards for the next three years.

BASW England takes over from recruitment consultancy Sanctuary, which had been headline sponsor since the awards were relaunched in 2011 under charity the Social Work Awards Ltd and sponsored the previous version of the scheme in 2010. Also, Sanctuary’s chief executive, James Rook, was a trustee for the awards charity from 2011 to 2021.

But the recruitment consultancy’s latest agreement as headline sponsor came to an end on 31 March 2024, so the Social Work Awards took expressions of interest for the position from other organisations.

The awards’ 2023 sponsorship pack outlined terms for the headline sponsor, which includes sponsoring the overall social worker of the year award and one additional category, along with publicity on the awards website and other publications and communications, in return for a £22,000 contribution.

The Social Work Awards said the majority of these terms still applied.

BASW England has a long association with the awards having also been involved in its 2011 relaunch and been its corporate sponsor – the second tier of sponsorship under the scheme – for many years.

The awards charity’s chair of trustees, Peter Hay, said it was “delighted” to expand its long-term relationship with BASW England, saying that the professional body “shares our value of encouraging a culture of reward and recognition in the sector”.

“BASW will support the charity with our aims of promoting best practice, celebrating success, improving public understanding of social work and promoting diversity and equal opportunities in social work,” he added.

BASW England chair Vava Tampa

BASW England chair Vava Tampa said it was “thrilled” to become the awards’ headline sponsor.

“This is a unique and important opportunity to showcase and celebrate the exceptional work of social workers and the very positive impact they make,” he added. “The awards are also key in building wider positive understanding of the profession and an inspiration for the next generation of social workers.”

The 2024 awards opened for entries last week, with 18 categories up for grabs, including a new award for practitioner-led research. Entries are open until 12pm on 3 June 2024.

British Association of Social Workers (BASW) chief executive Ruth Allen has been elected president of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) Europe.

Allen was elected for a four-year term by the 41 member organisations that make up IFSW Europe, which is both a regional division of social work’s global association and a legal entity in its own right.

That status means it is able to engage in relevant forums and organisations across the continent, such as the Council of Europe, which oversees the European Convention on Human Rights, and European Union agencies.

IFSW’s 2023 annual report said the Europe division’s work during the year included enhancing the capacity of national associations to influence decision-making on social work and contributing to an EU strategy on social care.

BASW head ‘deeply honoured’

BASW chief executive Ruth Allen

Allen, appointed BASW chief executive in 2016 and already a member of IFSW Europe’s executive committee, said she was “deeply honoured” to have been elected president.

“I look forward to working closely with all our members and partners to advance our organization’s mission. We need to work together across Europe to promote the vital role that social work plays in building just and equitable societies.

“I aim to build more connections between social workers across Europe and globally, to promote the sharing of knowledge and solidarity across our profession, and to raise up the voice of social work as a force for good across all our societies.”

Her predecessor as president, Ana Rădulescu, said that Allen was “dedicated and passionate about promoting the values and principles of social work”, adding: “I am confident that you will continue to make significant contributions to the promotion of human rights, social justice and solidarity among social work professionals.”

Prior to taking on the BASW role, Allen was director of social work at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.

The next government should increase social work bursaries, review practitioners’ caseloads and salaries and boost social care funding following the forthcoming UK general election.

Those were among 40 policies the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) wants to see political parties adopt in their election manifestos with a view to implementing them in the next Parliament.

BASW set out its proposals in its own manifesto for social work, issued today, which it plans to use as a lobbying tool to influence politicians between now and polling day, which most pundits expect to be in October or November 2024.

The policies are based on existing campaigns led by BASW and its sister organisation, the Social Workers Union (SWU), findings from the association’s annual surveys – the latest of which was published last week – and feedback from members and people with lived experience of social work.

They are a mixture of social work-specific measures, proposals relating to social care more widely and ideas concerning adjacent policy areas, such as welfare, housing and asylum.

‘Key actions to improve disadvantaged people’s lives’

BASW chair Julia Ross (credit: Simon Hadley)

BASW chair Julia Ross said the association was determined to use the opportunity of the election “to drive much-needed change and improvements in areas that are important to our members, the social work profession and people with lived experience of social work and social care services”.

“This manifesto will be the lynchpin for our campaigning,” she added. It presents key actions that the next UK government, of whatever persuasion, can take to improve social work and social care, working conditions, and the lives of the most disadvantaged in Britain today.”

BASW faces significant challenges getting its proposed policies adopted by the Labour or Conservative parties – one of which will form the next government.

Neither mentioned social work in their 2019 manifestos, while the parties have not indicated they will make any significant offers on social care, besides Labour’s plan to establish a fair pay agreement, designed to improve care workers’ salaries and working conditions.

Labour, which is widely tipped to form the next government, has also taken a different stance to BASW on some of its proposed measures, by saying it would keep the two-child benefit limit (source: BBC) and not committing to repealing the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (source: UK in a Changing Europe).

Parties’ tight spending limits

In addition, many of BASW’s proposed policies require extra government spending, at a time when both parties are hemmed in by their shared fiscal rule to get public sector debt falling as a percentage of national income by the fifth year of rolling economic forecasts  (source: UK Parliament).

To meet this, the current government has pencilled in average public spending rises of just 1% a year in real terms from 2025-26 to 2028-29.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the NHS, defence, overseas aid and childcare are likely to get more generous settlements than this, implying cuts of 3.4% a year on average in real terms to other services, including social care.

At the same time, neither party has indicated any intention to raise taxes to reduce or reverse potential cuts to public spending. The Conservatives are mooting further tax cuts beyond the reduction of 4 percentage points in employee national insurance contributions made this year, while Labour has pledged relatively small and specific tax rises, such as its promise to levy VAT on private schools to fund state education.

Most social workers have seen an increase in the number of experienced colleagues quitting their jobs in the past year, according to the British Association of Social Workers’ (BASW) annual survey.

For the vast majority of these practitioners, the loss of social workers with at least five years’ experience has had a negative impact on practice, found the association’s research, published yesterday.

Also, adequacy of staffing levels has risen to being social workers’ biggest challenge in the workplace, cited by almost half of respondents, up from a third in BASW’s previous survey.

There has also been a significant jump in the proportion of respondents citing cuts to local services as among the three biggest challenges facing the profession now and in the immediate future.

In addition, social workers have also seen an increase in need, with almost two-thirds saying they were now working with more people in poverty than before the cost-of-living crisis.

Social workers ‘frustrated by inadequate staffing’

At the same time, just under a quarter of practitioners had personally experienced bullying, harassment and/or discrimination in their place of work or study in the previous year.

Ruth Allen, the BASW chief executive (credit: BASW)

“In large numbers, social workers continue to tell us in our annual survey that their working lives are at least frequently frustrated by lack of resources and inadequate staffing and are too often downright hostile making it impossible to do what social workers know is right to serve their communities,” said BASW chief executive Ruth Allen.

The survey, carried out from December 2023 to January 2024, received 1,215 responses, 92% from qualified social workers and 7% from social work students.

Latest official data on social work workforce

BASW’s findings about a rise in attrition of experienced staff come despite a drop in social worker turnover in English local authority children’s and adults’ services in 2022-23, compared with the previous year.

At the same time, both workforces have been a significant growth in the number of new recruits, year on year.

However, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) has warned that councils have struggled to attract experienced staff, with many of those newly recruited being newly qualified.

At the same time, the proportion of children’s social workers with less than two years’ service with their employer rose from 29.6% to 30.9% in the year to September 2023, suggesting a shift to a relatively less experienced workforce.

Loss of experienced staff having negative impact

BASW found that 65.3% of respondents had noticed an increase in the turnover of experienced staff in their organisations in the previous 12 months. Of this group, 92.1% said this trend had had a negative impact on the workplace and practice.

When asked for the three biggest challenges in their workplaces, the most common answer was ‘adequacy of staffing levels’, cited by 46.9% of respondents, up from 34.9% in the 2022 survey.

Relatedly, half of respondents (50.2%) disagreed that they felt able to manage their current workloads, a slight fall on the previous survey’s 52.2%.

As in the 2022 survey, roughly two-thirds of practitioners (64.6%, compared with 68.2% in 2022) were unable to complete their work within their contracted hours. Four in ten said they were working at least an additional five hours a week on average, with two-thirds of all respondents saying any overtime worked was unpaid.

Increasing need and inadequate resource

The backdrop to social workers’ workload pressures was a context of increasing need and inadequate resource.

Just over half of respondents (51.2%) said they were working with more people as the cost of living has increased, while almost two-thirds (63.8%) said they were working with more people in poverty than was the case before the cost-of-living crisis.

At the same time, 67.5% of practitioners included ‘cuts to local services’ among the three biggest challenges facing the profession now and in the immediate future, with 62.2% citing a ‘failure to adequately fund social care’.

This is despite councils having budgeted to increase children’s social care spending by 11% in real terms (£1.2bn), and adult social care expenditure by 10% in real terms (£2bn), in 2023-24.

While the government is increasing grant funding for social care by £1.9bn (27%) in 2024-25, while also allowing authorities to raise council tax by up to 5% without a referendum, social care leaders have warned this was inadequate to meet rising need.

Levels of bullying and harassment

Almost a quarter of respondents (24%) said they had personally been a victim of bullying, harassment and/or discrimination in their place of work or study in the previous 12 months, up from 20% in the previous survey.

The news follows separate findings that black, Asian and minority ethnic staff in a sample of 23 English local authorities were 30% more likely to experience harassment, bullying or abuse from a colleague and 90% more likely to have experienced this from a manager in the previous year, compared with white colleagues.