An update on our analysis of diversity data in our fitness to practise processes

Over the past year, we’ve continued to analyse diversity data to give us greater insight into our fitness to practise processes. Our goal is to improve fairness in these processes where we identify that this is needed.

Now, we’re pleased to share:

• an update on our work so far
• what we plan to do next
• updated data for 2023 to 2024

What is diversity data and why do we collect it? 

Diversity data is information we gather about people’s identities, such as their age and ethnicity. The data we hold is a combination of information that we must hold on the register due to our regulatory framework as well as information that social workers provide voluntarily about their protected characteristics. We use this data to maintain the social work register and help us to understand different social workers’ experiences. For example, if certain groups of social workers are more likely to be involved in our fitness to practise process. By understanding this data, we can make changes to tackle any inequalities in our work.

We refer to “gender identity” throughout this document, and in our work. This is because the data we have collected from social workers to date has used this term, in line with the requirements of our regulatory framework. We are reviewing our registration requirements and will consider our approach to collecting diversity data as we continue this work.

We refer to some groups as ‘overrepresented’. This means that there is a disproportionate number of social workers in this group involved in the fitness to practise process.

What is the fitness to practise process?

Part of our role as the regulator is to make sure social workers are fit to practise. When someone raises a concern about a social worker, we progress this concern through our fitness to practise process.

When we say ‘referral’, we mean (both of the following): 

• the concern has reached the pre-triage stage of the process 
• we have identified a social worker (or social workers) 

You can view a flowchart that explains the different stages of this process. You can also read more about fitness to practise in our fitness to practise guidance.

Our work so far 

Our initial analysis

In September 2023, we published our initial analysis of diversity of social workers in relation to our fitness to practise process. 

We found that the following groups were overrepresented in referrals, and in cases that were referred for a hearing. They also had higher progression rates from triage to investigation, and from case examination to hearing: 

• Age: those aged 40 and over 
• Gender identity: males 
• Ethnicity: people of Black/African/Caribbean/Black British ethnicity 

We also learned that there was potential for further work to support our understanding. We committed to using this initial analysis as the foundation for further work. 

To support this, we have established a data oversight group. We established this group with: 

• the General Medical Council 
• the Nursing and Midwifery Council 
•  independent academic advisors  

This forum provides collaborative discussion and technical guidance relating to the analysis of diversity and fitness to practise data. They provide guidance on methods and techniques that we use to analyse our data, and draw our conclusions. 

Further analysis  

Following our initial analysis, we analysed the data again, including new data from referrals made in 2023 to 2024. We also added new factors to help us understand our initial findings. These new factors were:

• type of fitness to practise concern 
• region of social worker’s employment 
• type of social work employment 

We wanted to explore whether overrepresentations were still present in our data one year on. We did not anticipate significant changes because much of the caseload in our analysis was unchanged from a year ago. We also wanted to see whether the new factors helped us to understand our results.

 Our key findings were: 

• the overrepresentation we saw in our initial analysis was mostly still present with an additional year of data. Male social workers, social workers with Black/African/Caribbean/ Black British ethnicities, and social workers aged 40 and over, were all overrepresented at multiple points of our fitness to practise processes.
• the top 3 concern types recorded were the same for social workers who were aged 40 and over, male, and of black ethnicity.
• there were minimal differences depending on the social worker’s region.
• social workers in child sector roles appeared to be overrepresented in initial referrals (compared to social workers in adult sector roles). However, this did not explain the overrepresentations of male social workers, Black/African/Caribbean/ Black British ethnicities, and social workers aged 40 and over, seen in our initial analysis.

We are examining the impact of the initial findings and delving into greater detail to understand the overrepresentations we saw in our initial analysis. We expect it will take time for us to identify the causes of overrepresentation in our processes. Delivering any improvements to how we work will also take time. We are working hard to resolve cases as quickly as possible, but fitness to practise cases can take months, or even years, to progress through the process. Therefore, it will take time before our analysis shows the effect of any such improvements to the way we work. We outline the actions we have already taken in the next section.

We have published the full data sets at the top of this page.

How have we used our findings 

Since our initial analysis, we have: 

• developed an approach to work with employers to resolve concerns locally. By ‘resolving locally’, we mean that where appropriate to do so, people address the issue with the social worker’s employer, rather than escalating it to the regulator

• shared our findings with key contacts across local authorities. This led to rich discussions about shared challenges and local differences. We are using these insights to co-produce some ‘fair referral principles’ to support those making a referral.

• continued to collaborate and share our data and insights with Skills for Care to support the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC –WRES) to assist participating organisations to review their fitness to practise data and processes to help ensure fairer referrals.   

• begun prioritised delivery of training programmes for our registration and fitness to practise teams. This included an external legal provider training our staff on the application of the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act to ensure they are aware of the developments in the law and how they should apply this.

• conducted a thematic case review, exploring decision making in cases where EDI factors were identified. This review, alongside our initial findings, informed the creation of revised guidance on EDI and decision making for our staff.

What we plan to do next 

Detailed review of cases

To gain a deeper understanding of what causes overrepresentation, and understand potential actions to address this, we plan to examine a sample of cases in more detail. We’ll do this alongside our ongoing numerical analysis.

The sample will include social workers with characteristics that appeared overrepresented at each stage of our process, and a comparator group:

• gender identity  
  • male 
  • female 
• ethnicity 
  • Black/African/Caribbean/Black British 
  • White 

We will review all the details of the case, whilst also assessing the quality and consistency of decision making.  

Further numerical analysis

We are preparing to expand our numerical analysis of our diversity and fitness to practise data. We will use a more advanced method of statistical analysis. This will allow us to consider multiple factors that may influence how a case progresses through our fitness to practise process.

Future updates 

We want to understand the reasons why some groups experience overrepresentation in our fitness to practise process. We want to understand the causes of these differences so that we can explore the most meaningful and effective actions to address them.

By using a two-pronged approach of a detailed review of cases and further numerical analysis, we will produce better insights. We will then use our findings as a strong evidence base to help us design any future improvements to our fitness to practise process, guidance, and/or support and training for decision makers, as well as providing information to others who are responsible for dealing with concerns about social workers.

To identify and address the root causes of overrepresentation will be a challenging and complex area of work. While it will take time for us to fully understand what causes overrepresentation, our ambition to work with others to continuously improve this picture remains central to our work to protect the public and enable positive change in social work.

Everything we continue to learn in this space will help inform our next equality, diversity and inclusion action plan and our approach to fitness to practise.