It doesn’t define social work or what is regulated activity. What is a case for a social worker and what is for a case coordinator for example? With solicitors you do not have rights of audience in court or able to conduct litigation. Unqualified staff can do an assessment and care & support plan. It’s ridiculous that the definition of social work is not there.

You went to uni, worked for free for two of those years whilst studying. Bit like nursing. Anyone can nurse family members but it doesn’t make you a safe knowledgable nurse!

I am shocked. Good luck in correcting a wrong. I hope this is isolated and not common practice.

According to a legal member of the scrutiny team who worked on the care act, it was clear to that lawyer that the care act was drafted to reduce the need for registered social workers.

The introduction of Social Work England and the increasing demand for proof of fitness to practice i.e the requirement – as is the current state – for social workers to register every year and to produce to pieces of written work, including one that is reflective with another qualified person every year to prove that one’s practice has improved is point in case.

It is no longer sufficient to show how one has maintained a good level of practice and to remain current with legal frameworks, practitioners must now constantly improve. I don’t mind saying that when one has tens of years in practice and is the most experienced practitioner in a team, that proving improvement becomes very difficult and time consuming.

Which brings me to my final point,. Many services in which practitioners are so stretched or fail to understand the social work role – particularly in the NHS – that they do not allow time for practitioners to do CPD. Nor do they provide circumstances where learning can take place. For many a practitioner, supervision is not a vehicle for learning but more an administrative process focused on managers to tick box their responsibilities as managers.

More frequently than not, I go home feeling totally exhausted. I am also aware that many social work colleagues take annual leave (normally in late October or early November to complete their CPD for the registration process. This is totally unacceptable. The pressure that SWE is now placing on practitioners is far beyond maintaining what is required to prove competence to continue to practice and is a significant factor in practitioners missing the registration boat leading to them temporarily loosing their registration and then practicing illegally until they are re registered.

I would like to know what happens when a practitioner submits evidence to SWE but that evidence is not seem as meeting the standard SWE deems acceptable. I suspect that that practitioner looses their registration. What is such a person supposed to do, stop practicing? Fall into arrears with their mortgage or rent, be unable to pay their bills etc, etc. Hardly surprising that some continue to practice.

All the above is – being candid – due to a paranoid government, having their quango apply more and more pressure to practitioners. It is my firm belief that the Tory government have a form plan to minimise social work as a profession with the profession being significant depleted and much of the work of social workers being completed by support staff. This of course is a perverse situation as qualified staff are being put under pressure to constantly improve whilst much of their role is being completed by un-qualified and un-regulated staff.

Seems to me to be a totally bonkers position where there will be a constant reduction of Social Workers and end users of services will be significantly disadvantaged. This of course then helps the government in their goal of significantly reducing public services and the public sector.

Sad to hear of your circumstances but I do have to raise these issues.

Firstly please advise where in law a duty of care exists (it doesn’t). There is doctrine in Tort law regarding neglect and the ambiguity and wide spread misuse of the term duty of care leads most people – including people who should know better – to believe that duty of care exists in law which is totally wrong.

Secondly, the mental capacity act enshrines in law the presumption of mental capacity. It is only when there is good reason that an assessment of a person’s mental capacity would take place and then the decision must be subject and time specific. Also enshrined in law is the principle that when a person is being assessed for a specific subject where they are suspected to lack capacity l, every reasonable assistance must be provided to help them make the decision. I find in my practice on the front line that there is regularly a real failing on both of these principles where it is much easier for practitioners to find a person to lack capacity and progress to best interest decisions. This flies totally in the face of the MCA and results in unlawful decisions.

Anna, check history Blairs government started this pay to be registered stuff. SWE is the 4th regulatory body created since then

Social work is regulated by SWE. You need a qualification in social work, pay £90 a year, then can call yourself a social worker.