The good and bad of new draft standards for social workers

The proposals have been developed in partnership with social work experts and users of services. The consultation is open until 5pm on Wednesday, 1 May.

Here, Ray Jones, emeritus professor of social work, Kingston University and St George's University of London, and a registered social worker for 40 years, analyses the proposals and identifies key issues for consideration.

Professional standards

• I'm pleased to see the requirement that registered social workers have the explicit responsibility to be aware of - and to challenge - inequality, disadvantage and discrimination, and to promote social justice and inclusion (paragraphs 1.6 and 1.7). This is despite the views of former Education Secretary Michael Gove and former Department for Education adviser Sir Martin Narey that social workers were too concerned about poverty and discrimination.
• It is good that there are professional standards for social workers to report on resource shortfalls and poor organisational practice, but this could well leave social workers exposed and vulnerable to intimidating action by employers. How is Social Work England to assist and protect social workers when they fulfill this professional standard? Maybe Social Work England should itself set up a helpline to advise social workers, and perhaps work with the service inspectorates like Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission to harness and handle reports about poor organisational behaviours, structures and resourcing.

Registration rules

• Paragraph 14(3) looks new to me. It requires those who have not been registered for five years to provide evidence of 60 days of updating skills - and presumably knowledge - before being able to apply for registration, and therefore for employment as a social worker. This may well be sensible, but it potentially has a big impact on social workers who have taken a career break - and in a profession where most staff are female, this could be a career break to care for pre-school children. Employers, and especially local authorities, are often keen to attract experienced "returners". To make this feasible, 60-day, perhaps paid, reintegration programmes, or unregistered roles, are likely to be necessary before returners can take up a social work post.

Fitness to Practice Rules

• Paragraphs 13 and 14 of part three of the draft rules about registration appeals, and fitness to practice draft rule 35, have requirements about lay persons chairing the panels, and about a legally qualified person on the panel - or, if not, advising the panel. However, as I read it, there is no requirement that the panels should include a registered social worker. I find this surprising and indeed shocking that the panels deciding on the professional registration of individual social workers should not be required to include a registered social worker who has worked as a social worker and who knows about social work.

General comments

• Social Work England has made a good start in engaging and consulting with all who have interest in the quality and delivery of social work in England. It is doing what the chair and chief executive said it would do, which is to be an open and accessible regulator.
• There remains, however, two concerns: first, whatever Social Work England seeks to do - and how it seeks to do it - has to be reviewed and approved by the Education Secretary, which still leaves the door open to the political shaping and control of social work. Second, although the chair and chief executive of Social Work England have been social workers, there are no board members who are registered social workers, nor, as far as I know, users of social work services.

Consultation on professional standards, registration rules and fitness to practice rules from https://socialworkengland.org.uk