Social Work or Social Care – National Entitlement or National Control?

Policy Paper

Credits — Marion MacLeod

Overview

While we support the Scottish Government’s proposal to create a National Social Work Agency, we believe the detail of their proposal is critically flawed and offer the changes that should be made so enable to the NSWA to make a meaningful improvement to the lives of those who will use it.

The idea for a National Social Work Agency was first proposed in Social Work Scotland’s submission to the Adult Care Review under Derek Feeley : “In attending to the unique role and requirements of social work over the long term, as well as improving consistency of practice, providing subsidiarity within the system, and offsetting the potential fragmentation of the profession, Scotland should establish a national social work agency, differentiated from a national care service.”

However, the proposals eventually adopted by the Scottish Government as of Stage 2 of the National Care Service will lead to a NSWA that falls short of these aspirations. Common Weal believes that social work must form a core role within the National Care Service and in order to do so, the proposals for the NSWA must be amended.

Key Points

1. The scope and remit of the National Social Work Agency outlined in both the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Policy Memoranda to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill are not reflected in the proposed legislation. A single agency at national level has the potential to provide national professional leadership, but the current proposals fall short in this respect.

2. Though consultation responses to the Stage 1 Bill endorsed the concept of the NSWA being constituted as a partnership between CoSLA, Social Work Scotland and the Scottish Government, the Stage 2 Bill intends to establish it as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government. It could act as a professional leader and champion of social work values if it were independent of government and were constituted as a non-departmental public body.

3. The proposed NSWA will have no statutory authority and its role and function will be decided by current and future Scottish Ministers. This may not address the challenges facing social work unless it is given legal authority, and is free to hold government to account.

4. Underinvestment in social work is the most critical issue facing the profession and has had drastic consequences for services and for those who depend on them. This does not save money in the long term. Deficiencies in supportive infrastructure must also be addressed. The NSWA must have the capacity to identify the resources and funding needed to deliver a high quality and effective service that meets current need and is able to reduce risk and prevent crises.

5. It is critical that professionally qualified social work leadership is reinstated.

6. Social work education, both pre- and post-qualification, faces serious crisis, and should be addressed through the NSWA.

7. The balance and volume of typical social worker caseloads is unreasonable and unmanageable and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

8. The NSWA must have the power to assess the impact of government policies and challenge those that do not provide sufficient benefit for service users or place excessive burdens on the workforce. It must be able to commission research and to have findings translated into practice.

9. Immediate priorities include addressing the composition and sufficiency of the workforce, active promotion of established best practice, fundamental review of the care management approach and developing an operational delivery model founded on preventative, community-based approaches.