The final hours of General Election 2024....

UK General Election Day is nearly here.  BASW’s call in the run up has been for everyone to use their vote on July 4th, help others to vote where you can and take your photo ID to the polling station.

When you vote, I hope you consider the asks in the BASW UK manifesto. We have called for a set of specific, practical changes across the UK and in each nation that could make a huge difference to the lives of all of us -  the people we work with, the communities we live in and our experience as social workers. 

When reading our manifesto again, it struck me just how much better our society would be - and how much unnecessary suffering and deprivation could be ended - if our next UK government acted on what we have proposed. 

All the data about the state of our economy, our public services, environment and much more show that we need a huge policy reset to end the deep blights and degradations caused by years of austerity. As our manifesto is titled, ‘It’s Time to Get It Right’.

Systemic neglect has undermined our infrastructure, from the state of our rivers to the quality and affordability of housing; from the sufficiency of health and care services at home to the part we play in tackling climate change and international development globally.  The dominant doctrine of free market profiteering in public services, and the devaluing of essential social infrastructure has underpinned a lot of this decline. We see the impacts of this acutely every day in social work practice, supporting people struggling to find an affordable place to live, to get a liveable wage or access to suitable care and support.

Contemporary struggles of inflation and lack of workforce affect social workers and our members too. We know the struggles for students with inadequate or no bursaries and student debt spiralling. We know the challenge of staying in the profession with mounting caseloads and not enough staff to meet the scale of demand. 

We are asking for change in all these things and much more. We are not asking for the impossible; we are asking for the absolutely necessary.

We have just held our UK Conference in Edinburgh on the theme of sustainability, a concept that underpins our manifesto. The role of government is surely to protect and develop the basic resources and infrastructure needed for sustained wellbeing for all, to tackle the causes of social and other crises, and to ensure the most at risk and disempowered in society are supported to thrive and receive the care they need. These are the building blocks of a sustainable and healthy society where commitment to long-term wellbeing for all overrides short term political manoeuvring. 

This is more than altruism and ethical rightness - although these are fine reasons to act in themselves. We must act on inequality because poor health, lack of opportunities, social division and inadequate housing make us all less well off financially, emotionally and morally. 

Our economy is weak through lack of investment in development, skills and workforce. Huge profits are unsustainably siphoned off from core social infrastructure businesses such as water, energy, transport and care. Meanwhile, services fail, investment is inadequate, and we all end up paying more to prop up badly run operations.  

I can’t say that any of our manifesto asks are ‘most important’ but the UK-wide first four sections are certainly fundamental: tackle poverty including ending the ‘two child’ limit; poor housing, the involvement and empowerment of experts by experience, and challenging the racism and anti-human rights actions within recent immigration policies. 

This links to the fifth manifesto ask – restore to the previous level our expenditure on international development support because we need to play a much more active part in tacking the major international drivers of migration – economic decline, wars, oppression, climate change. 

I note also the vital importance of action on adult social care policy and empowering adults with care and support needs to live the lives they want and have a right to enjoy. This includes an end to institutionalised accommodation and the promotion of the value of social work as the key profession in facilitating change and upholding rights.

The changes proposed in our manifesto come from social work knowledge and values. They would make a world of practical difference to people’s lives. Let’s get behind them and influence the next UK government together.