Tag: politics

Social Work’s place within a National Social Care Service – Submission by Professors of Social work to Casey Review

Association of Professors of Social Work: Submission to the Casey Commission 2026

This submission has been authored by the Association of Professors of Social Work about the role and contribution of social work to adult social care in England. We are a membership organisation operating in the UK and our members are researchers and educators in the areas of social work and related fields, from higher education institutions.

1. What’s working well – social workers’ contributions to adult social care

There are growing number of people seeking care and support (from the public sector) whose needs are very complex and often include a combination of co-morbid physical and mental health conditions (e.g. mental health issues/dementia, frailty), disabilities, and ‘social frailty’ (e.g. poor housing, few resources, poverty, precarious social capital, limited family support). These different sets of needs intersect and social workers bring a social – person in environment – perspective that recognises and works with these intersections.  By the time the person (& their family carer if there is one) comes to the attention of adult social care teams in local authorities their needs often tend to be serious, embedded and chronic and the person – and their family – are often scared, confused, anxious and/or in a state of crisis.  

1.1 Social workers are very skilled at:

  • Supporting people through high levels of uncertainty and risk and enabling them to live the life that matters to them
  • Promoting people’s rights and voice: what matters to them and decisions that affect their care and wellbeing
  • Using knowledge to intervene effectively with people on the margins and/or facing a crisis. This includes legal knowledge – legal literacy situated on the nexus of the Care Act 2014, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, Mental Capacity Act 2005; also understanding about the context of ‘need’ (noted above).
  • Using practice-informed expertise: a fusion of knowledge and skills. This includes the capacity to support people living with multiple issues and high levels of uncertainty, engaging with the older person and their carer effectively and ensuring their needs are addressed in a timely manner. Particular (additional) skills include: negotiation, advocacy, reassurance, development of a trust relationship, balancing rights and risks, appreciating the concerns of the older person & carer, leading challenging conversations, and helping them to navigate the ‘system’.   
  • Engaging therapeutically – applying a range of interpersonal skills to support, guide, reassure and inform adults and their carers who are experiencing high levels of uncertainty, worry and strain. Acknowledging their fears and anxieties is especially important.
  • Persistence & being creative – this often involves sticking with people to gain their trust and engage with their concerns and perspectives and requires thinking ‘outside the box’ and looking to creative ways forward.   
  • Meeting the needs of family carers alongside the person receiving care and support. This includes carefully managing tensions between the two sets of perspectives/needs. Many carers are older people; some have their own care needs.  
  • Planning care: this involves being aware of ‘what is out there’ (health, care, welfare and community-based services); what the person and their carer have a right to, including welfare entitlements; considering how to develop a care package that meets the needs of both (the dyad) in a sustainable way.
    • A part of this is facilitating access to community resources and connection. Social workers are embedded in communities through their extensive knowledge of local resources and assets.  
  • Addressing issues arising from social frailty for example, helping the person to access unclaimed benefits, obtaining OT support to help them remain safely at home.
  • Making a distinctive contribution to multi-disciplinary teams: this often involves reminding health professionals of the person’s legal rights (e.g. to be involved in decisions) and of ways forward that are not driven by NHS priorities. Social workers co-ordinate assessments and contribute essential knowledge on adults’ support systems.
  • Taking on specialist professional roles including Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs: 95% are social workers): in this role they provide a holistic view of the person’s situation, circumstances and needs and balance mitigating risks against deprivation of liberty whilst ensuring the person is safe.
  • Leading safeguarding enquiries and supporting people’s rights to live free from discrimination, abuse and neglect. This includes younger adults transitioning to adult services.

2. What’s not working well and what needs to change

There are a number of persistent barriers in the current social care system in England that prevent people with care and support needs obtaining good social work support and that hinder social workers from delivering the best support they can to the adults they are working with.

  • Continuity of care and sufficient time spent with people who need care and support: Lack of continuity of social worker for people with care and support needs is a key concern. ‘The same social worker’ is not only what people want and is evidenced as promoting of their well-being, but it is also linked to enhanced retention of social workers (i.e. work is more rewarding). Increased amount of direct time with social workers is also what people want and what social workers think is valuable in terms of resolution of difficulties. For this to be achieved a reduction in administrative workload is required and lower caseloads. Continuity of social worker is also very important for family carers and other professionals working with the individuals   

2.2 Administrative burden: Unreasonable demands of ‘paperwork’ take social workers away from front line practice and other activities that focus directly on delivering care & support 

2.3 Earlier delivery of social work support: Too often social work support is received at a point of crisis. A key dimension of the Care Act is prevention of more serious needs developing. The local authority offer should be to deliver timely intervention ‘at the point when it is needed’ rather than at the point of crisis.

2.4 Specialist career pathways are currently lacking and are needed: Coherent career pathways with opportunities for specialist roles would help ensure that specialist skills and expertise are developed and deployed effectively but also that retention of social workers is enhanced. Particular groups that benefit from specialist social work roles include: people with brain injuries, palliative care, people with dementia, people with learning disabilities, and people with sensory impairments. Much more investment is needed to protect and extend these roles.

  • Greater investment in social work training pathways and qualifications is needed: Universities are the main providers of social work education and ‘supply’ qualified social workers to the adult social care workforce. Social work programmes are increasingly under threat, and many have closed in recent years due to decreasing student numbers and decline in the value of student bursaries (not rising with the cost of living).  Increased investment in social work education and access to student bursary funding in England would help improve recruitment to social work programmes and promote diversity and equality amongst people entering the social work profession. Increased bursary funding would also help protect the future of social work education.

2.6 Strengthening the role and importance of research to practice:  Social workers can create and use research evidence in both social work and social care. However too often social workers have no, or little, protected time to engage with research evidence to inform and improve their daily practice. A key dimension of promoting greater research engagement could be support for career pathways that explicitly engage with the development of research capacity e.g. NIHR-specific awards.

2.7 Making social workers more accessible in communities: Locating social workers in the settings where they can be easily accessed by those with the highest levels of need for care and support, is an obvious route to delivering effective social work. For example: hospitals and GP practices (see integrated care below). In Northern Ireland social workers are embedded in GP services in many areas. The Primary Care Multi-disciplinary Team model is an integrated primary and community health and social care delivery model ensuring that more care is provided outside hospitals, encouraging working across organisational boundaries, as well as strengthening the primary care sector in order to effect a shift towards community-based localised care. The Primary Care MDT model provides a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention approaches by embedding physiotherapists, mental health practitioners, social workers, and social work assistants in a primary care setting.

2.8 Social workers need to be situated at the nexus of integrated care: Their purview is holistic and their expertise is ‘integrated’ by nature. In England social care is often marginalised in integrated care frameworks and yet it is pivotal to the promotion of user wellbeing and to extending community-based living. Adults with care and support needs rely equally on support from social care and health care. In Northern Ireland the commissioning, management and provision of health and social care services is fully integrated and structured within five geographically distinct Health and Social Care Trusts. Within this model, integrated teams delivering social care services are well established.

3. Closing statement:

We have been keenly following the development and implementation of National Care Services in Scotland and Wales and are broadly supportive of such a development in England where social workers are a key profession embedded in the delivery of social care at both national and local levels. Social workers are an integral part of the adult social care ecosystem in England as: providers of support, advocates for people with care and support needs and their families, coordinators of care across the whole care system and highly skilled practitioners who appreciate the nature of complexity, promote legal and human rights and place the adult with care & support needs at the centre of decision making. Any future social care system must not only include and support social workers but seek to enhance their recruitment, retention and deployment to the people who most need and benefit from social work support. Their contribution is vital to people’s wellbeing, rights and quality of life.

Prof Ray Jones Briefing for LSWG on possible impact of Clauses 3 and 10 of Children’s Wellbeing Bill

There is much which is positive in the recent review in England of children’s social services, including the call to reverse the funding cuts of the past 14 years and the focus on family support and on kinship care, but with a few concerns and anxieties as well:

HOLDING BACK EXPERIENCED SOCIAL WORKERS AS EXCLUSIVELY CHILD PROTECTION SOCIAL WORKERS

The proposal, which was accepted by the Conservative government and which continues to be piloted and promoted by the new Labour government of holding back experienced social workers to only become involved with families when there are child protection investigations and plans has all the warning bells of unintended consequences:

  1. The thrust of the MacAlister review to provide more help for families when they start to struggle will be undermined by even more families, usually in the midst of significant poverty and deprivation, being drawn into child protection processes and procedures as the means of getting attention and engagement from experienced social workers.
  2. Other workers and agencies will talk up concerns about families as child protection concerns to get any involvement from, and the insurance cover of the involvement of, experienced social workers. But all the families will get is continuing contact with less experienced and confident workers with experienced social workers being held back and limited and trapped in monitoring and surveillance roles.
  3. The social workers in the specialist child protection multi-disciplinary teams will be more centrally located as specialist teams need to cover a wider area. They will be more remote from communities, will not have local knowledge of neighbourhood networks, and will have much more limited relationships with early years services, neighbourhood police officers, GPs, health visitors, youth workers, schools etc within a community area. In essence they will parachute in to do a child protection investigation with limited local intelligence and then leave.
  4. There has over the past 14 years been an exponential growth in child protection investigations (+152% since 2009-2010), but only 33% lead to child protection case conference. In effect, families have had the threatening intrusion of a child protection investigation with no significant concerns then found about the care of their children.
  5. Even when there are concerns leading to child protection plans these are not about physical abuse (7%) or sexual abuse (4%) but about emotional abuse (37%) and especially neglect (49%), which are heavily related to families under stress and going under when immersed in longer term poverty with no light at the end of the tunnel. These families need help not the anxiety-provoking and harassing oversight of child protection plans by this new breed of exclusively child protection social workers and remote multi-disciplinary teams.
  6. Directors of children’s services, Ofsted and BASW https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2024/04/10/seven-more-councils-chosen-to-test-family-support-and-child-protection-reforms/ have expressed their concerns about this direction of travel which seems to have been accepted by the government and the reports from the initial pilots is that is has been difficult to recruit and retain experienced social workers to take on this skewed role.

CONTINUING TO ALLOW PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT PROVISION OF CHILDREN’S SOCIAL CARE

Unlike in Scotland and Wales (and unlike in practice Northern Ireland) England has not turned away from private companies providing residential and foster care for children. BIG profits are being taken from the public funding for children’s care services whilst poorer quality care is provided remote from children’s families and at a distance from the children’s social workers.

The MacAlister review commented on this concern but the recommendation was for the better commissioning and purchasing of private sector services through regional commissioning and purchasing consortia. This will only make it worse – local authorities and social workers will have even less knowledge of the private sector placements they are making. Not only will the placements be at a distance but the commissioning will also be at a distance.

This tanker of privatisation does need to be turned! Two ways forward whilst not a big bang destabilisation of current arrangements on which local authorities have become dependent, so a softly softly approach is necessary:

• Make available a larger capital grant to local authorities to rebuild their own local capacity in residential children’s homes and require local authorities to file an annual report with the DfE on their plans and progress in having sufficiency in directly managed and provided local children’s care services.
• Have a requirement within the national data sets and performance measures to report on what proportion of children ‘looked after’ are within foster care and residential services directly managed by the local authority, and have as a part of Ofsted inspections and each local authority report a focus on whether children are being cared for within the local authority’s own area.

Ray Jones
16.1.2025

2024 Election- Manifesto for a Labour Social Work and Social Care

UNLEASHING THE POWER OF SOCIAL WORKERS IN THE CAMPAIGN TO TRANSFORM SOCIAL CARE

Social work values are Labour Party values. We call upon the Labour Party to unleash the power of social workers to play a vital part in transforming social care and the support and protection for children, older people and working age adults with disabilities. This will play an important part in reducing the pressures on the NHS and mainstream education services.

TO RELEASE THE POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL WORKERS THE NEW LABOUR GOVERNMENT MUST TAKE STEPS TO–

PREVENT the need for people to be cared for away from home

In the context of a commitment to reduce poverty and inequality and its devastating impact on children, families and adults, social workers can work with local authorities, community groups and voluntary organisations to provide the inclusive services that people of all ages need: to be safe at home, to thrive, and to become active contributors to their communities and the economy. This would reduce to a minimum the number of people for whom care away home is the only viable option.

PROTECT children and adults of all ages from abuse and neglect

Social workers have the personal qualities and interpersonal skills to form trusting relationships with children and adults who have complex needs and/or struggle to engage because of negative experiences of people in authority. Social workers have sound legal knowledge and expertise in assessing risk and taking prompt action to protect people who are being abused or neglected. This includes making expert and sensitive judgements about the safety and wellbeing of people experiencing crises in their mental health or when their capacity to make decisions is impaired.

PROMOTE human rights and access to timely care and support

Social workers are effective advocates for people who are being treated unfairly or discriminated against; in supporting people to get the care and support to which they are entitled; and promoting social justice.

PROVIDE leadership

Social workers provide focused, supportive and inspiring leadership to colleagues at all levels from frontline casework to chief officers.

REVERSE the trend of privatisation

The Labour government should end the policy of outsourcing care services to profit-driven private sector providers. When children young people and adults cannot remain at home they should receive high quality not-for-profit local care to meet their needs. Government should fund and empower local authorities, community groups and voluntary sector organisations to use their local knowledge to develop services that reflect the needs of local people.

RECRUIT more social workers to replace those lost through stress and unsutainable working conditions

The Labour government should recruit potential social workers to initial qualifying courses in research-active University Schools of Social Work that prepare them to work with people who are at all stages of the life course, rather than restricting them to specific age groups or specialist areas of practice. Social workers need to appreciate the complexity of human connections. People live in multi-generationalfamilies and communities and their problems and needs intersect and are inseparably connected. Expand the supply of these courses.

RETAIN skilled, experienced social workers

The Labour government should keep social workers in public services by providing salaries, terms and conditions that reflect their level of skill, expertise, knowledge and the demands of the role.

Provide working conditions that reduce bureaucracy, promote professional development and wellbeing, including regular professional supervision, and dedicated time for professional development, reflective discussion and peer support.

How Can the Labour Party Be More Inclusive of Care Experienced Members?

by Kerrie Portman. Care Experienced Labour Party member and Cambridge University Student

During my studies at the University of Cambridge, I conducted research into how political parties can be more inclusive of Care Experienced People, using the Labour Party as a case study. I chose this area as I am a Care Experienced and a Labour Party member. Unfortunately, I was bullied and excluded within my first CLP, though have since foud inclusion in other Labour circles. Political inclusion is allowing everyone having a fair chance to speak their political opinions and Care Experienced people should be no exception. Care Experienced People face systematic increased disadvantage such as higher rates of loneliness, premature death, unemployment, mental illness, and suicide attempts. These are not divorced from politics, making our inclusion within political settings even more important. Political parties can help create a sense of identity, shared commonality, and sense of belonging. Including Care Experienced People in political discussions can help us feel included and reduce the ‘othering’ and out-grouping. Political parties investing effort into including and valuing Care Experienced People within the Party and policies can improve the quality of life for Care Experienced People and aid the emotional duties of Corporate Parentship. Labour, specifically, has a legacy of inclusion and this targeted campaign brings increased responsibility. 

During my research, I conducted primary research, conducting semi-structured interviews with Labour Party members. During this, I found four key themes emerging; a lack of data rendering Care Experienced people invisible unless they made it known they were Care Experienced, a lack of cultural humility and CLP’s being set in their traditional ways, assumptions and the need for CLP’s to understand the importance of listening to the views of Care Experienced people to better be able to help the full spectrum of the community and training and terminology and how alienating this can make CLP’s and politics in general. 

At the end of my research project, I included an appendix of all the recommendations from my interviewees, which can be roughly divided into two categories; cultural shifts and practical suggestions. All interviewees agreed that Care Experienced People deserve to be more included and more involved within the Labour Party and I hope the recommendations are seriously considered

  • Identifying the barriers Care Experienced people face
  • Make it more welcoming to people in general
  • Creating a safe space for Care Experienced people to share their experiences
  • Creating policies that address structural barriers
  • Recognising Care Experienced people as a specific demographic and marginal group culturally
  • Increasing the visibility of Care Experienced people
  • Creating networks, collectives and/or groups at CLP and regional level for Care Experienced members
  • Educating members on different ways to engage
  • Placing more emphasis on different forms of participation
  • More education on Corporate Parentship
  • Seeking input from Care Experienced people when writing manifestos
  • Speaking to Care Experienced people and treating them with respect when issues are raised
  • Specific support for Care Experienced members who want to run for positions (for example, looking at transferable skills)
  • Having guest speakers who are Care Experienced speaking to CLPs
  • Creating a Care Experienced Officer role within the Labour Party and having someone to specifically support Care Experienced members
  • Reducing specialist terminology
  • Being aware of new members
  • Outreach to those who can’t attend branch meetings, as well as related local charities and organisations
  • Specific outreach to recruit Care Experienced members into roles
  • Advocating for being Care Experienced to be a Protected Characteristic and pass Motions to act as though it is
  • Promoting Council Tax Reduction Schemes and other adaptions to improve the lives of local Care Leavers
  • Mentorship for Care Experienced people
  • Delivering (i.e. papers and reports) in a more accessible way
  • Discussing which councils and CLP’s have implemented things that support Care Experienced people and things that haven’t worked
  • Alternating the time, location and formal of meetings
  • Making meetings “less tedious” and more engaging
  • Putting thighs for Care Leavers in the manifesto to “signals something really positive to Care Leavers and other people with similar experiences”
  • Holding regular meetings that explain the basics of the party, what they’re doing and how people can be involved