From Newsletter #1 Spring 2010

The Social Work Taskforce recently published its Final Report. What will this mean for practitioners and service users at the front line? Mark Baldwin presents an overview of its main recommendations, and argues that it fails to address major issues such as funding, social work values and service user involvement.

The Taskforce Report, published on December 1st 2009 comes at a time when social work is again under pressure from the media and politicians wanting to make even more changes to the profession at organisational, practice and educational levels. It is a report that appears to offer solutions at a make or break moment for social work.  We desperately need a boost to social work in the wake of unfair vilification, so what does the Report propose and will these recommendations deliver?

The Taskforce Report makes a number of key proposals including a reformed system of initial education and training, a single, nationally recognised career structure, a system for forecasting levels of demand for social workers, a licence to practise system and a programme of action on public understanding of social work in which a new proposed national College of Social Work would play a leading role.

While the Report does contain some positives, as a radical campaigning network of social workers, service users, students and academics, SWAN must express disappointment at the Report’s lukewarm and non-developmental nature.  Where it should be campaigning on behalf of the profession it is apologetic, where it should be reflecting the views of frontline workers who have been denied the opportunity to practice and develop their knowledge and skills it has kowtowed to the managerialist status quo, and where it had an opportunity to engage with service users in a powerful alliance to determine the future for social work for all our benefit, it has chosen instead to reflect the interests of management, ministers and the markets.

The following is a summary of our main concerns about the Report (and are discussed in greater detail in an unedited version of this article on the SWAN website):

•    Funding - the Implementation Report (March 2010) indicates there will be resources to put the recommendations into practice but with an election and a recession we will have to wait and see whether the resources go where they are intended.  Many of these recommendations have been made in previous inquiries/reports but local authorities, the principal employers of social workers, have not proved willing to invest in the profession.

•    Social Work Education – it is recommended that employers have greater control of the Social Work degree. We believe it is crucial social workers are able to reflect on the effectiveness of their practice with some of the most marginalised people in society, and understand user need in its broader social, political and economic context. Our concern is that increased employer direction of education would mark a shift towards an apprenticeship model of education, in which such critical and reflective approaches might be marginalised.

•    Service User involvement - one of the most positive developments in social work in recent years has been the inclusion of service users in running degree programmes and service development. However, while there is some mention of user involvement in the Task Force Implementation Report, and some user representation on the Reform Board created to develop and implement the Task Force’s proposals there will remain concerns that this may be tokenistic.

•    Social Work Values - there is little in the way of values to inform the recommendations. Where is the commitment to challenging inequality and arguing for greater support for the most disadvantaged?  Where is the acknowledgement of social work in its political context?

•    Post-graduate year in assessed practice – this might seem like a useful development to bridge University/placement learning into the first post-qualifying workplace.  However, there is a potential problem of representation and regulation. Will employers be accredited?  What level of support and continuing professional development will they be required to make available to newly qualified social workers?  Who will assess them?  If it is line managers, what opportunity will there be for a critical and reflective approach to professional development?

•    Career structure - will the proposed new structure (including new senior roles to enable experienced social workers to remain in frontline practice) lead to local authorities de-professionalising even more jobs?  Will social workers at the top of the ladder be priced out of the job market, as teachers sometimes are?

•    Supervision - A greater emphasis in the Report on supervision is to be welcomed but what model is proposed?  Will it include professional learning and development, or involve more scrutiny around meeting targets and resource control?

•    College of Social Work - how will the College be organised?  Will it be a democratic organisation run by and for social workers or by an elite? Will it have teeth in negotiations with employers on terms and conditions of employment?  What about the unions?  What opportunity is there for collective action in defence of our profession?

The Taskforce Report is flawed in the ways that have been outlined above, but it is an opportunity to discuss the future of social work at a critical time.  SWAN believes in social work as a profession that can make a difference in the lives of marginalised and oppressed service users.  We are a powerful voice within the profession that needs to be heard.  The many social workers and service users who are involved with SWAN, want much more from the review of social work than is evident in the Taskforce Report.  It addresses some concerns but misses many others.  We now have an opportunity to lobby the Reform Board, pressure a new government after the next election, and continue to build a powerful alliance of social workers, students, service users and academics to defend the future of the profession that sticks up for oppressed people in our society.