Will a new era of government mean a new era for social work?

Will the new government mean a new era for social work? What are its priorities for the profession and for social care?

Those were the questions posed by Josh Dixon, Policy and Campaigns Officer at BASW,
in a seminar which looked at the implications of the change in UK government, at the COMPASS Jobs Fair in London last week

He opened the discussion with a look at BASW’s manifesto for the 2024 election, which listed 40 policy actions for MPs, for the social work profession, for people who use social work services, and for wider society.

The manifesto included measures aimed at tackling poverty, protecting human rights, scrapping harmful anti-immigration laws, reforming mental health legislation and to increase funding for children’s social care.

It also included calls for the UK Government to better support, resource and value the social work profession, by introducing a review into caseloads, reforming student bursary support, increasing mileage allowance payments and working with BASW to establish a social work workforce strategy that prioritises recruitment and retention.

He said that although urgent action was needed: ‘currently, it feels like the government is keeping its cards close to its chest. But we cannot spend the next ten years hoping that fixing the NHS will lead to improvements elsewhere.’

Mr Dixon asked participants to give their views on the biggest challenges for social work, and asked them to ‘name one thing that the government could do to make a positive difference for you and your colleagues.’

One participant said, ‘I feel that we have a sticking plaster approach when so much is systemic – it’s about poverty, housing, education opportunities. People need secure housing, employment opportunities, and support for children. That is what really is needed.’

Mr Dixon said, ‘That is really hard to get across to government and there there has not been a government open to that.’

A family support worker commented, ‘in my observations, in a support worker role, the challenge is about staff retention, pay levels, lack of funding and consistency for families. They see different social workers every time.’

‘We want to see a national recruitment campaign.’ Josh Dixon said. ‘we see those campaigns for health professions, teaching and so on. Getting the reference to social work is difficult, even though social work is an emergency service.’

Another audience member said, ‘if there is one thing to fix, I think it would be about workload which would make us all less stressed. It’s not about pay really – that’s not why any of us are in [the profession]. It’s about consistency across employers so that we would not see the team-hopping across authorities that goes on now.

Some disagreed. ‘The stress of the job means it does not pay enough’, a social worker said. We are expected to have this eternal capacity but we can’t pay for the therapy we need.’

‘Up to 2022, social work had seen the lowest increases in pay across the professions – worse than teachers,’ Mr Dixon commented. ‘The effect of the cost of living crisis on social workers have not been discussed enough.’

Another participant commented that if the government were to reduce the cost of training or provide other options, that would ultimately lead to increased numbers of staff and lower caseloads.

Finally, Mr Dixon encouraged members to get involved in BASW’s 80-20 campaign, which aims to reverse the current trend whereby social workers are spending most of their time on administrative and process driven tasks, rather than on building relationships.

‘BASW has released a suite of resources and tips, to say to employers that this is what they should be doing so that social workers can spend more time on the direct practice they went into social work to do.’