BASW England Statement on Social Work England Review
The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) welcomes the Independent Review of Social Work Professional Regulation in England. The report rightly highlights and clarifies the role and function of a regulator whilst acknowledging the fundamental role a professional association plays in providing practice leadership, professional advocacy for and with the profession and of course advice and representation. The report highlights the need for social work to have a strong identifiable architecture to support our profession which includes a professional association and BASW warmly acknowledges this conclusion.
BASW strongly welcomes the report’s endorsement of the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) as an integral part of social work identity. As the professional association, BASW is the custodian of these standards on behalf of the profession that were developed and are maintained by the profession itself. The PCF provides the holistic architecture that prevents fracture and promotes the ‘one profession’ social work identity. We therefore welcome the report’s recommendation that BASW continues to be the custodian of the PCF and welcomes the opportunity for participation in the broader work to bring coherence to the wider standards landscape.
The report confirms what our members have told us: that Social Work England (SWE) must urgently both eradicate the unacceptable delays in its fitness to practise processes and address the profound structural inequalities these processes exacerbate. In particular, the shockingly disproportionate referrals and outcomes for Black men represent a profound systemic injustice. We, as a profession, must urgently address this by working across the profession's architecture, inclusive of employers and universities, to eradicate this institutional and structural racism from within our systems. BASW welcomes the opportunity to work together with key stakeholders to ensure that the regulator's mandated six-month strategic improvement plan places the eradication of this disproportionate impact at its core.
The review highlights fundamental weaknesses in the current system for monitoring the Continuing Professional Development requirement for registration. The current system has created a gap where newly qualified practice is regularly quality assured, but ongoing quality assessment for continuing practice is absent. We need to move toward a model of genuine, continuous professional development, led by BASW as the professional association for social work and then regulated through a system which protects both practitioners and the public at all stages of a professional's career. BASW supports the recommendation to move to a meaningful three-year cycle and is keen to work with SWE to co-produce a more meaningful system.
BASW welcomes the opportunity to work constructively alongside both Government and Social Work England to advocate in the best interests of the profession. Through our active participation in the newly established standards task group, we will ensure that the voice of frontline practitioners directly shapes the future professional and regulatory landscape. Our priority remains securing a fair, equitable framework that protects the public, champions anti-racist and rights-based practice with social justice at its core and upholds the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) as the profession-owned bedrock of social work career development and progression.
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The full review by Annie Hudson can be read here.
