Social Work England’s watchdog has praised improvements in the speed of its response to overseas practitioners seeking to register to work in the country.

The comments came in a generally positive report on its performance in 2024 by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), which monitors Social Work England and nine health professional regulators.

For the second year running, Social Work England met 17 of the 18 standards it was assessed against, covering its general processes, approach to registration, oversight of social work education and fitness to practise (FTP) system.

The exception was standard 15, on the fairness and efficiency of its FTP process, which it did not meet for the third year running, due to chronic delays in processing cases*.

Sharp rises in overseas applications and processing times

The number of applications from overseas social workers applying to register in England annually almost trebled from 2020-23, from 659 to 1,866.

This triggered a sharp increase in the time Social Work England took to process cases, from less than 10 days on average for most of 2021, to over 50 days in 2023.

The regulator met the relevant standard (11) in the PSA’s 2023 performance review. However, the watchdog said then that, though the regulator was taking “reasonable steps” to address the issue, it expected to see performance improve.

Watchdog praises faster handling of overseas cases

The number of overseas applications fell by 19% to 1,520 in 2024, and, after peaking at 75 days in March 2024, the average handling time fell to less than 25 days in every month from August to December of last year.

“Whilst it is likely that the decrease in the volume of applications contributed to this, it also seems likely that the action taken by Social Work England has significantly contributed to this improved performance,” said the PSA, in its 2024 report.

This included updating guidance for overseas applicants, making the process more efficient, increasing resources for the relevant team and meeting with councils recruiting overseas to gain insight into their processes, said the watchdog.

Equality, diversity and inclusion standard

The PSA also praised aspects of Social Work England’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion (standard 3), highlighting, in particular, the role of its National Advisory Forum, which comprises experts by experience and social workers.

The PSA said that the forum “co-produces a significant amount of work with Social Work England” and its role underlined the regulator’s commitment to co-production.

It also positively highlighted the fact that Social Work England had eight different equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) related themes for categorising corporate feedback or complaints. When these were identified, the information was shared with the head of EDI, and any actions or learning monitored by the internal quality and improvement team.

Rachel Meade case

The PSA review was the first to take place since an employment tribunal found Social Work England had committed a “serious abuse of power” in allowing its FTP processes to be “subverted to punish and suppress” social worker Rachel Meade’s protected gender critical beliefs.

After finding the regulator had harassed Meade on account of her beliefs through the FTP process, the tribunal imposed exemplary damages on it, a measure generally designed to  “punish conduct that is oppressive, arbitrary or unconstitutional”.

It also recommended training in freedom of expression and belief for Social Work England’s fitness to practise staff, which the regulator said it would implement, alongside other measures designed to respond to the tribunal’s findings.

Social Work England’s response to concerns 

Following the case, the PSA said it would monitor how Social Work England responded to the judgment. In its 2024 report, it said Social Work England had “explained what it is doing to address the concerns raised with it”, in relation to the Meade case and the issue of FTP delays.

“Its response appears reasonable and we will continue to monitor its progress,” the PSA added.

As such, it said the regulator had met standard 4, which involves “[addressing] concerns identified about it and [considering] the implications for it of findings of public inquiries and other relevant reports”.

Regulator aiming to meet all standards

In response to the report, Social Work England chief executive Colum Conway said: “We are confident in our performance and have once again met 17 out of 18 of the Standards for Good Regulation.

“However, we know this is not good enough and will never be good enough until we meet all 18 standards.

“While timeliness in our fitness to practise process continues to be a challenge, we do have a pathway to achieving standard 15 which requires additional funding over time. The delays in case progression are unacceptable for us and for everyone involved.”

*Community Care will be reporting on the PSA’s verdict on Social Work England’s fitness to practise process separately.

A new podcast miniseries focusing on social workers from around the world launches this week.

The number of overseas social workers in the UK has grown significantly in recent years. According to Social Work England data, the number of international practitioners applying to register to practise in England went up by 175% from 2019-20 to 2021-22.

This new podcast miniseries, part of season three of The Social Work Community Podcast, focuses on the differences in social work between the UK and other countries, as well as the challenges social workers have faced emigrating.

It kicks off with Community Care’s careers editor, Sharmeen Ziauddin, speaking to senior social work lecturer at Brunel University Yohai Hakak, who is conducting a research project looking at the migration of social workers to and from the UK*.

Hakak is also part of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Diaspora Social Workers special interest group.

Watch the teaser on Instagram. 

He explains why he is carrying out this research and gives an insight into a few of the many differences in social work between England and other parts of the world.

Are migrating social workers being perceived as experts who can enrich local practice with new approaches and perspectives? Or are they seen as a necessary compromise, and are mainly judged by the length of time they require to adjust to local practice contexts? (Hakak et al, 2023).

These are some of the questions that the podcast aims to answer.

What else is coming up?

The second episode continues with Hakak talking about his experience of practising as a mental health social worker in Israel.

Hakak describes how the marginalisation of particular communities, such as Mizrahi Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Palestinians, can influence their mental health.

Both episodes are out this week.

Future episodes will feature social workers from Australia, America, India and many more countries.

*The Brunel University study on social work migration is ongoing; if you want to take part, visit this page.

A council has set up an internship to help Hong Kong-qualified social workers living locally to register to practise in England.

Sutton Council has developed the scheme with Kingston University to provide the practitioners with sufficient supervised practice and formal study to enable them to meet Social Work England’s registration requirements for overseas staff.

Eight practitioners have been accepted onto the internship, which will run from November 2024 to February 2025.

Hong Kong migration 

From 2021-24, 150,400 Hongkongers arrived in the UK under British National Overseas [BN(O)] visas, enabling them to live and work in the country for either two-and-a-half or five years, bringing dependant family members with them.

The BN(O) scheme applies to people who were registered as British nationals when the UK handed Hong Kong to China in 1997, and to any of their children born subsequently. It was set up in 2021 in response to a 2020 Chinese national security law restricting the rights and freedoms of Hongkongers.

The introduction of the BN(O) visa was followed by a significant uptick in applications from Hong Kong-qualified social workers to register with Social Work England.

The regulator received 334 such applications from from December 2019 to March 2024, 37 of which were multiple applications, according to data published in response to a Freedom of Information request carried out by Dr Echo Yeung, associate professor in research at the University of Hertfordshire. Most of these were made in 2022 and 2023, with 207 practitioners gaining registration*.

Overseas registration requirements

To register as a social worker in England, practitioners from overseas must:

• pay a non-refundable scrutiny fee of £495 to Social Work England;
• verify their identity and address, for example, by providing passport details;
• demonstrate sufficient knowledge of English unless they have trained or practised in a country where English is the first and native language;
• have a social work qualification that is either equivalent to an English degree or, where this is not the case, sufficient practice experience to make up for this;
• have practice experience in a country where social work is regulated within the past 12 months or, where this is not the case, evidence of having kept their skills, knowledge and experience up to date.

Though social work is regulated in Hong Kong, many practitioners applying to register will have been out of practice for over a year, including because of the challenges of migrating to the UK.

In such cases, Social Work England requires practitioners to have demonstrated that they have kept their skills up to date through formal study, practising under the supervision of a registered social worker or private study.

Those who qualified two to five years previously must carry out 30 days of skills and knowledge updating while those whose qualification is more than five years old must do 60 days, with private study accounting for no more than half of the time.

Providing job opportunities while reducing social work shortages

Marian James, chair of Sutton council’s people committee, said the authority was approached by UK Welcomes Hong Kongers – a project set up by the charity UK Welcomes Refugees to support the integration of those arriving on BN(O) visas – about social workers in the area.

“The council designed an internship whereby Hong Kong-qualified social workers can gain supervised practice experience over a three-month period and worked with Kingston University on an accredited module to support the formal study hours that are required for Social Work England re-registration.”

She said it was “an innovative way of providing employment opportunities for Sutton’s growing population of Hongkongers while reducing the shortage of social workers locally”.

A national support programme for the growing number of overseas social workers in the UK should be “seriously considered”, the British Association of Social Workers has said.

BASW made the call after launching its own professional development scheme for new international recruits to UK social work.

Employers, particularly in England, have turned to international recruits in recent years to tackle persistently high social work vacancy rates in children’s services and adult social care.

Social Work England recorded a 175% increase in the number of overseas applicants to register between 1 December 2019 to 30 November 2020 and the same period in 2021-22.

From 2021-22, the number of Nigerian social workers on the register grew by 31%, the number of South African practitioners by 29%, the number of Indian staff by 22% and the number of Zimbabwean professionals by 21%. Over the same period, the register as a whole grew by 1.5%.

Lack of support for overseas staff

However, overseas social workers have reported receiving inadequate support to manage the costs of relocation, insufficient training to adjust to UK practice and a lack of career progression.

These experiences prompted BASW’s Diaspora special interest group to produce a set of standards for employers on improving the recruitment and induction of overseas staff, which were launched last year. These stated that international social workers should be given three years to adapt to practising in the UK, including an induction programme and ongoing continuing professional development.

The association has now followed this up with a support programme for overseas staff. This includes a self-directed learning package to help international recruits prepare to practise in the UK and a peer support development programme for employers to purchase for new social workers from overseas. The latter comprises 1:1 online coaching sessions and group-based learning, delivered by BASW members who are independent practitioners.

BASW’s head of professional development and education, Jane Shears, said the programme had been developed based on feedback from overseas social workers who had moved to practise in the UK.

“What we’ve heard is that even if someone is already an experienced social worker in Hong Kong, say, they feel quite deskilled, they feel like they are coming in as a less qualified social worker,” she said. “So we put together a package, the peer support development programme, which is about supporting social workers when they enter the workplace.”

‘Massive learning curve’

Diaspora group co-chair Duc Tran added: “It’s a massive learning curve for people coming from overseas. You need to learn the jargon, the legalese. It does need some support.”

Learning areas included different approaches to disciplining children in the UK, compared with other countries, he said, while Shears pointed to the need for international recruits used to a community development model of social work to adjust to the casework-based approach in this country.

However, Tran added: “What we’ve found is that support is quite inconsistent, it depends on the local authority. If they have a practice development team, they can absorb some of that support. However, they may be very busy already completing portfolios for students and apprentices and supporting [practitioners on the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE). So having [the BASW programme] gives local authorities another option to rely on to support their overseas staff.”

Call for consistency of support

But while highlighting the value of the BASW package, Tran said there was a need for a consistent programme of support for international recruits, backed by government funding.

“We’ve got a programme for ASYEs,” he added. “We’ve got a programme for social work apprentices. I don’t think it takes a lot of money to help support local authorities to help their international recruits. A lot of these social workers have skills and experience and can help improve support to the particular communities local authorities are serving, but not to lose sight of the fact that they need support.”

Shears added: “We have to acknowledge that the transition into new roles from another country does need some programme of support and if that is consistent across the different employers, I think that would be a really helpful starting point, so the expectations are clear.”

National programme ‘should be seriously considered’

In a statement, BASW did not formally adopt the idea of a national programme but said there was a strong case for it.

“We must invest in and support social workers and social care colleagues from overseas within the working environment but also within the community context, including access to safe and affordable housing, advice and support,” said a spokesperson.

“A national overseas social workforce programme aligned to other programmes including ASYE (for social workers) is a proposal that needs to be seriously considered alongside investment of appropriate resources for local authorities.”

From the government’s proposed national rules to cap the use of agency workers and World Social Work Day to social work students’ financial struggles and journalists’ reflections after spending a day shadowing practitioners, here’s 2023 in review.

January

Picture posed by model (credit:
Viacheslav Yakobchuk/Adobe Stock)

In January, a social worker wrote about his experience in a placement he had been forced to leave after being treated with disrespect by staff.

The piece resonated with many practitioners, who took to the comments to share their own placement stories.

Here’s a snippet:

“The first indication that something was wrong at this placement was when I opened a door for a staff member who was carrying outdoor equipment. The staff member abruptly said “move” and brushed past me. I considered this to be extremely rude but dismissed it as I thought it may have simply been a one-off incident. However, similar such instances persisted.”

February

(credit: vinnstock / Adobe Stock)

In February, the Department for Education proposed national rules to reduce the cost and use of locum staff in statutory children’s services.

Those included capping the rates councils could pay for agency staff so that locums were paid the equivalent of permanent staff, banning the use of project teams and barring early-career practitioners from agency work.

Months later, following consultation, the government watered down its original proposals, ditching plans to cap agency social worker pay to the level of permanent staff.

March

Pictured: Dr Muzvare Hazviperi Betty Makoni with a group of overseas social workers recruited through Morgan Hunt and trained by Social Care Empowering
Photo credit: Dr Makoni

In March, we marked this year’s World Social Work Day by interviewing social workers who have come to work in the UK from overseas. We spotlighted their strengths and brought awareness to the obstacles they faced.

“The values of social workers that I work with are second to none,” said Chris Armstrong, the business director of recruitment agency Morgan Hunt’s social care branch.

“Their natural empathy and solid, string and passionate direct work are unbelievable.”

April

Photo: hakinmhan/Adobe Stock

Following the news of the government shelving its plan to introduce the Liberty Protection Safeguards to replace the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, a piece by lawyer Tim Spencer-Lane set out what that would mean for social workers.

May

Photo by AdobeStock/my_stock

In May, a poem from practitioner Jessica Taylor on the highs and lows of working in social work touched the hearts of many readers.

June

Photo by Allistair F/peopleimages.com

In June, we wrote about the lack of financial aid social work students from England, Wales and Scotland received  while studying to join the profession.

We spoke to Emma, a single mother of two from Scotland, and Omar Mohammed, who, at 19, was travelling four hours a day for his course, working a part-time job and was the sole carer of his nine-year-old sister.

Here’s a snippet:

“[…]Literally every bit of free time I had was [spent working],” says newly qualified social worker Omar.

“I’d never go out or buy myself something unless it was a necessity. I’d never do something that I was interested in or engage in a hobby. If I ever had money, it would be spent on my sister. It was extremely tight, definitely a challenge.”

July

Photo: Sanja/Adobe Stock

In July, a major survey of over 1,000 children’s social workers in London and the South East found that discrimination was leading minoritised practitioners to quit permanent local authority posts for agency ones.

“The [black and global majority] workers we spoke to do not describe making this decision by choice, but rather expressing a feeling of being forced to do so due to poor experiences, lack of support and economic necessity,” said the Big Listen report.

Read our full rundown of the survey.

August

Photo: olyphotostories/Adobe Stock

In Community Care Inform’s July podcast episode, Dan – a care-experienced young person living in semi-independent accommodation – shared his experiences of, and advice for, social workers.

Dan shared his perspective on how social workers and services worked with him from his early teenage years, and what he would have liked to have been different.

September

Photo: iStock

At the end of May, four journalists from the Community Care team spent a day shadowing practitioners at Wandsworth children’s services.

Read all about the home visits, direct work, family therapy, unit meetings, genograms, small wins, difficult decisions, risk, trauma, and public transport. And snacks – never forget the snacks.

October

Photo by ink drop/AdobeStock

In October, as Barbie took over cinemas worldwide, a social worker’s take on the infamous speech at the end of the movie struck a chord with practitioners.

November

Credit: bankrx AdobeStock

In November, unions agreed to accept employers’ local government pay offer for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, following an eight-month-long dispute.

The pay rise was £1,925 for staff outside London earning up to £49,950, with a 3.88% hike for those on higher wages than that. Outer London staff received a £2,226 rise while colleagues in inner London got a £2,352 increase up to a defined salary threshold.

The deal was worth about 4-6% for social workers, despite unions asking for a 12.7% pay rise in February to exceed inflation, which was then about 10%.

Read our full report.

December

Photo: Chris Titze Imaging/Adobe Stock

To round up the year, in December it was announced that a record 100,495 social workers in England had renewed their registration with Social Work England!

This was the highest proportion recorded in the four renewal rounds since Social Work England took over the regulation of social workers in England in December 2019.

What Community Care article resonated the most with you in 2023? Tell us in the comments below.

Government plans to prevent overseas care staff from bringing family members with them to the UK risks worsening the sector’s already significant staff shortages.

That was the message from sector bodies yesterday after home secretary James Cleverly announced a raft of policies designed to cut annual net migration from a high of 745,000 in 2022.

This included a bar on care workers who take up jobs using the health and care visa bringing dependants with them, as they are currently permitted to do.

It will also prevent providers who are not Care Quality Commission-registered from sponsoring workers, in response to significant concerns about workers being exploited by recruiters running fake care agencies. The changes will come into force next spring.

The government said that, in the year to September 2023, it issued visas to 101,000 care workers and senior care workers, and to 120,000 dependants accompanying them, about a quarter of whom were in work.

Overseas care staff instrumental in cutting vacancy levels

Overseas staff were instrumental in a slight reduction in adult social care vacancies – from 164,000 to 152,000 – and increase in filled posts, from 1.615m to 1.635m, between March 2022 and March 2023.

During that time, 70,000 overseas staff were recruited into direct care roles by independent providers in England through the health and care visa, many more than the 20,000 year-on-year increase in filled posts across the sector as a whole.

Cleverly told the House of Commons yesterday that he did not envisage that the measures would have a negative impact on the social care workforce.

International recruitment ‘displacing British care staff’

He claimed overseas staff were displacing British workers, as the number of people coming in on visas was less than the overall increase in the workforce last year.

James Cleverly

He also said the government suspected that there was “significant surplus demand” from overseas staff to work in the UK care sector.

This would mean that anyone dissuaded by the restrictions on bringing in dependants would likely be replaced by someone without family commitments, he added.

“So, we don’t envisage there being a significant reduction in demand because of the changes that we’ve made, but it will mean that we have the care workers that we need but not the estimated 120,000 other people who have, in the most recent year, come in,” said Cleverly.

However, his confidence was not shared by sector bodies.

Government ‘severing lifeline’ for sector

The Care Provider Alliance (CPA), a coalition of 11 representative bodies across all provider sectors, said the government was “severing the lifeline of international recruitment”.

“This is currently the only option we have to maintain and increase workforce numbers, as recruitment in the UK remains challenging,” said CPA chair Jane Townson.

“If care workforce numbers fall and providers cease to operate, unmet need will escalate. Not only will this lead to individual and family suffering, but it will increase pressure on council and NHS services and further extend waiting lists.”

The Care and Support Alliance (CSA), which represents over 60 charities for older people, disabled people and carers, issued a similar message.

‘Action needed to make care roles attractive to UK staff’

“Too many people in need struggle to access good care as it is, and the risk is that today’s announcement will make the situation worse,” said CSA co-chair Caroline Abrahams, who is also charity director of Age UK.

“It is facile for any policymaker to suggest that there are ample numbers of people already based here to fill the gaps in the social care workforce, without also agreeing to the action needed to make these roles more attractive domestically in terms of pay and conditions.”

In his autumn statement last month, chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a 9.8% rise in the national living wage, from £10.42 to £11.44 an hour, next April, a move which will benefit many thousands of care staff.

However, Townson warned that, without extra funding, councils and NHS commissioners would not be able to pay providers sufficiently to cover the rise.

Latest call for more investment into sector

Both the CPA and CSA urged the government to significantly increase adult social care funding to reduce the sector’s reliance on migration.

The government’s response to the many such calls it has heard over recent months is to point to £8.1bn it has made available to councils to invest in social care from 2023-25.

However, £1.6bn of this is reliant on authorities raising council tax by the maximum permitted amount and about £1.3bn is expected to be spent on children’s services.

Social care was spared further restrictions on immigration that will apply to other sectors. People with a health and care visa will be exempt from a sharp increase in the minimum salary required of skilled migrants from next spring, from £26,200 to £38,700.

Currently, care workers and senior care workers are allowed to come in on a reduced salary – £20,960 – on the grounds that they are on the government’s shortage occupation list (SOL).

As part of his announcement yesterday, Cleverly announced a review of the SOL to reduce the number of occupations it covered.

Adult social care vacancy numbers have fallen slightly from an all-time high over the past year, but remain over 150,000, show figures released today.

The number of empty posts fell from 164,000 to 152,000 in the year to March 2023, revealed Skills for Care’s annual State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report.

However, this remains well above the 110,000 recorded in March 2021.

The drop appears to have been driven significantly by the government’s decision to allow care providers to recruit care workers and home carers through skilled health and care visas from February 2022, by placing them on its shortage occupation list.

Overseas recruitment drive

Skills for Care estimated that employers recruited 70,000 staff from abroad in 2022-23.

Sector bodies welcomed the fall in vacancy numbers but warned that social care could not rely on overseas recruitment to solve its workforce problems, amid widespread low pay and lack of opportunities for progression.

“International recruitment has been helping to fill some of the gaps, but it’s not a proper, long-term solution to the workforce challenge,” said the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ joint chief executive, Cathie Williams.

“We must as a matter of urgency develop a social care workforce plan that attracts people to make rewarding careers in social care.”

Williams pointed to the publication of a long-term workforce plan for the NHS last month, adding that “we can’t tackle the deep-rooted challenges in the care and health system as a whole without a social care plan too”.

The Local Government Association and NHS leaders issued a similar message.

Call for adult social care workforce plan

“A dedicated plan to promote, protect, support and develop careers in social care, alongside better pay, terms and conditions, would both strengthen the wellbeing and recognition of those who work in this essential vocation, as well as benefit the people who draw on care,” said the chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, David Fothergill.

NHS Providers director of policy and strategy Miriam Deakin added: “While the contribution of overseas workers is invaluable, the sector cannot rely on this in the long term. We desperately need better investment to recruit and retain UK staff to put the sector on a sustainable footing.

“The NHS long-term workforce plan promises to deliver more care at home. A social care workforce plan could ensure we have enough staff in place – with better pay and terms and conditions – to meet growing demand.”

Think-tanks the Health Foundation and Nuffield Trust also questioned the reliance on overseas recruitment and voiced the need for a long-term workforce plan.

“Relying on overseas workers and agency staff are not the long-term solutions that will put social care staffing on a sustainable footing,” said the trust’s deputy director of policy, Natasha Curry. “So, while it is welcome to see short-term gains, we urgently need to see proper investment in social care if we hope to make the sector an attractive place to work.”

Migrant staff ‘exploited and harassed’ – UNISON

UNISON, meanwhile, raised concerns about some “unscrupulous” employers’ treatment of migrant staff, whom it said had been “exploited and harassed”.

In a letter to care minister Helen Whately, the union cited cases of staff having to pay upfront fees of £15,000 to employers in return for being found housing, which was sometimes poor, having wages withheld to recoup the costs of training or accommodation or being subject to racist remarks.

“Many overseas care workers have paid extortionate fees to come to the UK,” said UNISON’s general secretary, Christina McAnea. “When they get here, many can’t believe what they’ve signed up for.

“Sold an expensive dream, the sad reality for many is a nightmare of terrible treatment, scant training, excessive hours and low pay. The government must hold care providers to account and put a stop to this ill-treatment.”

By Clare Jerrom

Employers have been set standards to tackle the “poor support” received by the UK’s growing band of overseas social workers.

In the wake of a 175.3% rise in the number of overseas applications to register in England from 2019-20 to 2021-22, the British Association of Social Workers’ Diaspora Social Work Special Interest Group has produced the standards to improve recruitment and induction.

This followed feedback that the experiences of overseas social workers had “often been challenging with poor induction and management support”. This included a poll on the Community Care site, which found that 48% of readers believed international practitioners were supported badly, on coming to work in the UK.

Launching the guide at BASW’s annual conference this month, group co-chair Duc Tran said overseas staff faced three key issues in coming to work in the UK.

Lack of support for overseas social workers

Firstly, they lacked support to manage the financial impact of relocation, including travel costs that could exceed £2,000, up-front accommodation costs, potentially topping £3,000 in London, and the need to register before arrival.

Social Work England requires a £495 non-refundable scrutiny fee in addition to the £90 annual registration fee from overseas applicants.

While many local authorities offer a relocation package of up to £8,000, practitioners often could not access the money until after they have moved, while Tran said it could be used up within two months.

Secondly, social workers from overseas often were not given the training and support needed to adjust to working in the UK, said Tran. They also experienced a lack of career progression, with their many skills not always being recognised by managers, he added.

What it’s like for overseas social workers to move to the UK

Pictured: Dr Muzvare Hazviperi Betty Makoni with a group of overseas social workers recruited through Morgan Hunt and trained by Social Care Empowering
Photo credit: Dr Makoni

For World Social Work Day 2023, we examined the experiences of international social workers moving to UK to practise, highlighting the many barriers and challenges they faced along the way, along with the value that they bring to this country’s workforce, in increasing numbers.

Read more in World Social Work Day: the social workers crossing oceans to practise in the UK.

Standards for employers

Under the proposed standards, employers should provide overseas practitioners with a relocation package that at least covers all travel costs, social work registration fees, visa costs and temporary housing.

To help social workers and their families settle in the UK, the guidance says employers should provide access to psychological, medical, educational and cultural support, and offer practitioners a buddy.

Recruiters should allow three years to allow international social workers to adapt to practising in the UK, starting with a well-designed induction programme that should minimise anxieties and set clear expectations.

Overseas social workers should receive review meetings after three, six and 12 months to assess progress, identity training to fill skills gaps and enable them to provide feedback on what is going well and what needs improvement.

Employers should also provide practitioners with a continuing professional development plan, including compulsory training on cultural differences and sensitivities within the UK.

In addition, practitioners should receive coaching and mentoring from senior social workers to help with both their transition and their subsequent career development.

Workforce shortages

The sharp increase in overseas social workers in England has come amid increasing staff shortages, with vacancy rates rising to 20% for local authority children’s services and 11.6% for adults’ services, in the year to September 2022.

Social Work England is anticipating further increases in overseas applications this year, with this being among the reasons that its business plan predicts a £1m increase in registration income this year.

Welsh regulator Social Care Wales, meanwhile, has received 126 applications to register from overseas social workers since October 2022, with 217 people who qualified outside the UK registered as of 9 June 2023.

“International social workers bring with them a wealth of expertise and experience which can be a huge asset to any social work employer,” said Tran and Priya David, his fellow co-chair on the BASW diaspora group, in their foreword to the standards.

“It is our hope that these standards will be used across the UK to ensure international social workers receives the support and training they need to be successful as social workers in the UK and to make a positive difference to their employers and the lives of the people with whom they will work.”

For BASW, chair Julia Ross said: “BASW is delighted to support this publication alongside people with lived experience of migration to the UK, and we look forward to seeing this framework help both social workers, employers and indeed other professionals for many years to come.”

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week.

From a ruling over who’s responsible for unaccompanied migrant children living in hotels to the exploitation of overseas staff recruited to work for a social care provider, here’s what you might have missed this week in social work:

Councils responsible for unaccompanied children, judge rules

Photo posed by model (Jan H Andersen/Adobe Stock)

Local authorities are responsible for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in hotels run by the Home Office, a family court judge has ruled (source: CYPNow).

In a ruling, published last week, Mrs Justice Lieven stated that young people who arrived in the UK without a parent or carer and were housed in hotels were entitled to protection under the Children Act 1989 on the same basis as other children.

This was on the back of children’s rights charity Article 39 issuing a wardship application for 76 children who had been reported missing from a Home Office-run hotel in Brighton and Hove earlier this year.

The charity had warned that it was not clear whether the children were the responsibility of the Home Office or relevant local authority, risking them going without statutory support. If successful, the wardship application would have brought them under the protection of the court, but the judge ruled that there was no gap in the law.

“This judgment has brought vital clarity to a wholly unacceptable situation where extremely vulnerable children have been treated as being in ‘legal limbo’, outside the protection of the Children Act 1989,” said Carolyne Willow, director of Article 39.

“The Home Office has no power to house children outside the care system, and government should be properly funding and supporting local authorities to meet their comprehensive duties.”

In response to the ruling, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “The wellbeing of children and minors in our care is an absolute priority. Robust safeguarding and welfare measures are in place at all temporary hotels to ensure children are safe, secure and supported as we urgently seek placements with a local authority.”

Migrant staff at care provider left in debt – investigation

Photo by AdobeStock/Proxima Studio

Migrant nurses hired by one of England’s biggest children’s care chains have been left without income for months and stuck in debt, an investigation by The Observer has found.

The nurses, hired through agencies to help fill 400 vacancies at Cambian children’s services, were paid lower wages than initially agreed and, in some cases, were also given ‘false promises’ about accommodation and employment terms, reported the paper.

The group consisted mostly of women from India, who had spent as much as £18,000 on relocation costs, training charges and other fees.

Despite being promised financial support from their 11th day in the UK, they were told, on arrival, that they would only be paid after shifts started. However, some were left waiting up to four months to start working, with their visa preventing them from finding another job.

One nurse, hired from India, said she had been waiting for three months without pay and paying 20 times as much for rent as she had back in India.

“Our family is dependent on us. We came here to work for them,” she said, adding that the nurses were now asking for help from those same relatives to “eat and pay the bills”.

Cambian has denied suggestions that it was in any way responsible for “shortcomings” in the recruitment process, including fee arrangements between agencies and workers. The company added that agency partners were responsible for accommodation, arranging English lessons and for setting expectations of what working in the UK would be like.

It added that it had gone beyond its contractual obligations to support recruits by offering interest-free loans and hiring a transition officer.

Share your experience of social work

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Social Work England is looking for practitioners or people with lived experience of social work to join its national advisory forum.

The forum’s role is to act as a “critical friend” to the regulator, with its members providing feedback on Social Work England’s work from the perspective of practitioners and those who had been involved with social work services.

“The National Advisory Forum makes sure that Social Work England takes the views of real experience of social work into account,” said Sally Parker, member of the forum since 2020.

“We have co-produced over 50 pieces of work this year and we been involved at all stages from planning to implementation and then evaluation. The group is dynamic, and we bring together diverse knowledge and perspectives, whilst maintaining a culture that is open and supportive.”

The deadline to sign up is 29 June, and anyone who has had social workers in their lives, social workers and social work educators can apply.

Majority of home care staff not paid for travel, finds survey

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Three-quarters of home care staff in England are not being paid for the time they spend travelling between visits, a survey has found.

The results, published by UNISON this week, showed that 18% of the 310 staff surveyed reported been provided with pay slips accurately detailing their time spent travelling and what they had been paid for this.

According to data from the Homecare Association, home care workers spend one-fifth of their working day (19%) travelling between appointments.

One worker who responded to the survey said they had completed a 12-hour day, including travelling, but had only been paid for nine hours.

“I’m only paid for the time spent in someone’s home,” said Sandra, who works in Yorkshire. “I’m out working eight hours minimum but get paid for six This dramatically reduces my hourly wage. I’ve thought long and hard about going into a different sector to get a fairer wage,”

For UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea, this was a matter affecting both care workers and those they looked after.

“Vulnerable people suffer when their already rationed care visits are cut short or delayed,” she added.

“These appalling working practices must be tackled urgently if more people are to be encouraged to work in a sector desperately short of staff.”

Tweet of the week: social work and AI

“While social work and AI may appear an impossible alliance, the impact they can have on services when combined is profound”

Fantastic presentation from @BarmanAdhikari on how we can harness the potential of AI to transform social services for the better #ESSC2023 pic.twitter.com/aGPJlHytA5

— Calum Campbell (@sw_calum) June 16, 2023

Fears about artificial intelligence’s impact on humanity have been rife recently, but could it potentially have a positive impact on social work? That was the suggestion from a presentation this week from US-based social work academic Anamika Barman Adhikari, at the European Social Services Conference.

For more information, check out this TED Talk she did on how social workers can use AI to assess risks to homeless young people and thereby improve support for them.

For a sceptical take on the technology, check out this piece for Professional Social Work magazine from UK academic Christian Kerr.

Do you want to share your views and reflections on social work with fellow practitioners by writing for us? Check out our guidelines page for information on how to share your ideas.

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There is “momentum for change” among sector leaders and practitioners to tackle the social work’s mounting workforce “crisis”, according to a Social Work England lead.

There was “a universal recognition of the fact that change is needed” among a group, consisting largely of sector leaders, that the regulator has convened to tackle social work’s worsening recruitment and retention issues, Sarah Blackmore told adults’ directors last month.

The regulator had also been “inundated” by applications from practitioners and others to take part in the group’s work, said Blackmore, the regulator’s executive director of professional practice and external engagement.

This will involve contributing to three workstreams – on recruitment, retention and agency work and other working practices – which will start work shortly.

‘Perfect storm’ of high caseloads and perceived low status

Speaking at the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services’ (ADASS) annual spring seminar, Blackmore said the worsening picture for recruitment and retention in social work reflected a “perfect storm” for the profession that had built up over many years.

Sarah Blackmore, Social Work England

This was driven by factors including rising demand “high caseloads, inflexible working practices, disproportionality for our global majority colleagues, perceived low status and credibility of the profession…and of course the impact of funding issues”.

Blackmore warned that some of the solutions put forward to date – such as banning agency social work, increasing international recruiting or making greater use of non-qualified staff to carry out social work tasks – had been inadequate.

On locum staff, the Department for Education (DfE) has proposed rules to restrict their use in council children’s services to curb rising costs and practices such as agencies only supplying social workers through project teams.

The situation had led former Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) president Steve Crocker to moot a ban on the use of agency staff in children’s services, though he and the ADCS subsequently backed the DfE’s proposals, consultation on which closed this week.

Blackmore said, while there was a need to deal with the practices of some agencies in only supplying “expensive” project teams or stipulating that staff need not carry out face-to-face practice, there would “never be a time where social work will not need some element of agency workers”.

‘Knee-jerk approach’ in recruiting from overseas

Amid a 175% increase in the number of overseas social workers applying to work in England over the past three years, said there had been “a knee-jerk approach, where overseas social workers are being recruited often without local support, cultural adaptations, pastoral care, or sometimes even a recognition that there may be registration issues”.

She said there were also “important ethical considerations of moving social workers from countries where there is already great need for them to deal with a problem we have not addressed”.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) recently raised concerns about Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) proposals for councils to have more assessments carried out by non-qualified staff, to deal with social worker vacancies.

Blackmore told the spring seminar that the “increasing delegation” of previously social work tasks to non-qualified staff risked “the gradual erosion of the integrity of the social work profession” as well as further depleting an already-stretched social care workforce.

‘Momentum for change’

She said Social Work England had convened the workforce group to develop “a broader, more considered systemic approach” and, in the meetings so far, there had been “a real sense of collective energy and momentum for change”.

“There is hope, and opportunity, and perhaps for the first time, a universal recognition of the fact that change is needed and must now come, and willingness to step up both individually and collectively of those who are in a position to bring that about,” she told the spring seminar.

Social Work England has also encouraged practitioners to apply to take part in the group’s three workstreams.

In a statement to Community Care, Blackmore said: “Thank you to everyone who has submitted an expression of interest for the workstreams. We have been inundated with offers of support and will be contacting successful applicants very shortly before setting up the first series of meetings.”