BASW presses government to clarify its position on pay rises for social workers

Social workers often feel ignored in relation to fellow public sector professionals

Once again, there is no mention of social workers in a government announcement on public sector pay rises so BASW is pressing the government to clarify its position.

BASW chief executive Ruth Allen says: “All social workers – just like all public-sector workers – should be paid fairly but unfortunately our members often feel ignored compared to other public-sector workers.

"This undermines the morale of a workforce that the government’s own statistics show is experiencing the highest level of demand and pressure since 2010.

"Furthermore, the pay cap lift doesn’t answer crucial questions about who funds it, which will inevitably lead to a variance in pay. For without allocated funds from central government councils are left to make hard choices based on scarce resource.

"Of course, this variation is intrinsically linked to the wider issue of adequate funding for services. Years of austerity cuts have seen local authorities drastically reduce services that provided much needed help for the most vulnerable in society.

"Properly funding services for services users and urgently improving the working conditions of the workforce is what BASW lobbying the government to do to stop the churn of good social workers leaving the profession."