BASW's Future Vision for Growth and Impact
BASW is excited to announce an ambitious programme of transformation across all four UK nations that will reshape how the organisation operates, engages with its members and delivers value — with a clear focus on driving sustainable membership growth and creating an even stronger campaigning voice for social workers.
The new model and vision has been informed and developed thanks to feedback gathered through an extensive sector-wide conversation with members, the wider profession, people with lived experience, and other stakeholders. The key takeaways from the Big Conversation were:
- Modernise, modernise, modernise
- Develop a clear and confident identity
- Be at the heart of strategy and policy
- Develop a sense of belonging and community
- Focus on professional development of social workers and the profession
- Lead of practice knowledge and practice excellence
- Develop clearer and bolder campaigns to be our voice
A Fresher, More Dynamic Operating Model
Our ambition is simple: to become a stronger and more compelling organisation for both existing and future members. Crucially, it is about putting membership at the heart of all that we do.
To achieve this vision, a new operating model has been implemented to modernise BASW, ensuring we are a more agile and member-focused organisation.
- A four-nation member focussed approach: The four-nation commitment has been transformed with nation specific Professional Practice Leads and dedicated Nation Delivery Team - a staff team who will specifically focus on practice, communications, policy and public affairs, groups, branches and networks, and membership. In addition, all staff will have a four-nation approach in their roles and report to National Standing Committees. These changes ensure an equity of input, resources and performance across all nations, and deliver on the Big Conversation feedback to “modernise” and “develop a clearer identity”
- Modernising operations: A streamlined executive team will see three directors sit under the CEO, bringing core functions together. Heads of service have been created, as well as a reporting framework to evaluate financial, membership and business performance. These changes deliver on the Big Consultation feedback to “modernise” and “be at the heart of social work strategy and policy”
- New sales and marketing roles: For the first time, a dedicated new team will have target driven responsibility to increase and retain membership, as well as to evolve our offer and bring new ideas
- Building a stronger member proposition: As recognised stewards of social work standards, BASW will launch a new learning and development framework - designed to support BASW members in every step of their social work career. Members can look forward to new tailored communications to ensure BASW members are accessing their member benefits. This delivers on the Big Consultation feedback for us to “lead on practice knowledge and practice excellence”
- Empowering our staff: BASW’s transformation has been informed directly by consultation with our members and staff through the Big Conversation, which was launched in January 2026. Following this, BASW staff took part in a two-month consultation programme to shape BASW’s teams and operations. We are proud to serve our hard-working members, champion the profession and fight for a fairer society. These changes ensure we can deliver on members feedback for us to “develop clearer and bolder campaigns to be our voice”
The new model is intended to give us a bolder voice, more CPD options, better support services, and a greater impact in representing and fighting for our members.
What does this mean in each nation?
What came through loud and clear in The Big Conversation was for BASW to be more dynamic in how we respond to challenges unique to practice, policy and legislative contexts within the different nations in order to maximise our impact for members across all parts of the UK.
Our renewed four-nation commitment will ensure that each nation has equity of staff resources and a national standing committee empowered to develop an annual delivery plan tailored specifically to our member's needs and experiences in their respective nation.
New Professional Practice Leads have been appointed in each nation alongside dedicated staff in our core service areas to drive a full programme of representation, advocacy, campaigning, support, resources, events and other activity. It also includes dedicated support for Branches, Thematic Groups, Special Interest Groups and Networks.
Nation Delivery Teams can be viewed on the following links:
Be part of this exciting, new chapter for BASW
We've shown what we can achieve with 20,000 members - from producing guidance on use of artificial intelligence in social work, to our work on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, campaigning for better working conditions across all national parliaments, developing a highly regarded social work coaching support service, and more. Now, we want to go further.
This new vision is about growth and higher impact. As we end September 2026 with an operating surplus for the year and in a strong overall financial position, this is the time to invest in the future of BASW.
To our current members - we're excited to be sharing this journey with you. Thank you for all the amazing work you do and we can't wait for you to be a central part of this future vision for a stronger BASW and social work profession, where you can rest assured we'll be championing, supporting and fighting for you every step of the way.
Together, with your support and the solid commitment of our staff working for our members, we can create a stronger, more influential, and sustainable BASW for the future.
To our future members - there has never been a better time to join BASW. Membership delivers all that you need, every step of your social work career, from learning and career development opportunities to resources, advice and representation and a lifelong sense of community. Join today!
A Message from our CEO
BASW Interim CEO, Professor Sam Baron commented:
"We have heard our members loud and clear. This transformation is about thinking differently, raising our ambition and putting membership at the very heart of everything we do.
“With modern, data-driven capabilities and clearer ways of working, we are transforming BASW into a modern professional association, designed to attract and retain more members, improve services, and ensure the organisation has greater impact in representing and fighting for social workers.
“As a registered social worker, I am personally committed to delivering our new vision and accompanying new structure to ensure social work has a strong, vibrant and professionally recognised professional association which represents and fights for social work and social workers.
“The changes are an opportunity to achieve this, to strength the work we do, have greater impact and influence across all nations and ensure that social work remains a valued profession which is respected, transformative and strong.”
