Social worker survey results 2024

Social Work England’s overarching objective is the protection of the public. One of the ways we achieve this is by promoting and maintaining the professional standards for social workers. The professional standards set out what is expected of social workers in England. They cover areas such as:

• promotion of the rights of people
• families and communities
• accountability
• the importance of continuing professional development

This survey looks to understand social workers' views on the importance of the professional standards and how well they understand them.

We asked social workers how much they agreed with the statement: "The professional standards are important to me?"

An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the standards were important to them.

Just over 5% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement.

The remainder gave a neutral response.

In free text comments, respondents discussed:

• upholding the professional standards
• how the professional standards hold social workers to account
• the value of the standards
• how helpful they are as a benchmark for practice

We received 618 free text comments in response to this question. The majority of comments were positive (56%), describing the professional standards as helpful, useful and valued.

Some social workers commented that it is a challenge to uphold the professional standards. This was due to their working environments. For example, access to limited resources within local authorities or cuts to services which support people and families. These were both described as barriers.

Looking at some typical responses that agreed or strongly agreed that the standards were important to them, one social worker made links between professional standards and the sort of people social workers tend to be:

“Professional standards are important, but I think if you go into social work, you are a special type of person to begin with, you have your own internal standards and morals which guide you in practice. You just need to make sure you are doing to the job for the right reasons and treat people as if you would want to be treated and you can’t go far wrong. Respect and understanding go a long way.”

Another social worker highlighted the link between standards, safety and risk management when they said:

“[Professional standards] … help social workers and their management adhere to a professional framework for working that keep children and families safe from misguided or unsafe practice, promoting their well-being and safety and in this way they are helpful in keeping social workers safe. They should support the social worker to address any discrimination in theirs or others practice and promote the rights of families. They promote ongoing professional development.”

These quotes suggest that the professional standards are important because of their resonance with:

• social work values
• positive practice
• public protection
• ongoing professional development

Overall, respondents felt that the professional standards are important and relevant to their social work practice.

We asked social workers how much they agreed with the statement: "I understand how the professional standards apply to my work as a social worker?"

Over 90% said that they agreed or strongly agreed that they understood how their standards applied to their work.

Looking at representative comments from social workers they noted:

“They [professional standards] underpin my work… They are important to protect vulnerable people and groups as well as clearly stating expectations for those in the profession.”

27% of free-text comments reflected on how the professional standards align to routine social work practice. Social workers also reflected that they apply the professional standards when completing their continuing professional development (CPD). They also apply them when supporting social work students and newly qualified social workers.

“I work hard to ensure that I am demonstrating and evidencing through my CPD that I am meeting all of the professional standards that underpin my practice. Personally, I believe that the standards are easy to understand and capture the heart of what it means to be a social worker.”

Social workers also commented that they need more support to apply and embed the professional standards in their work. This support needs to come from employers, leaders and social work managers. 32% of free text responses highlighted a concern with the disconnect between the professional standards and expectations of employers.

“I have done a lot of work to apply the standards, as I supported students to apply them. Perhaps not enough is done to support application in experienced staff and team managers and above seem to never mention them or hold them in mind.”

Another social worker felt that the pressures of practice and their work environment presented a challenge when applying the professional standards.

“They are embedded in everything I do day to day. Sadly, this is often at odds with the day to day pressures on practice, policies, procedures.”

Some social workers also found non-regulatory guidance frameworks, such as the Professional Capabilities Framework, to be helpful. Social workers frequently referenced to links between the professional standards and best practice. For example:

“I can clearly understand how the professional standards map onto my work, both in terms of direct practice as I work with care leavers as well as with other potentially vulnerable young people… and in my record keeping. Furthermore, I used the professional standards as a means to promote best practice within my team and wider organisation.”

The next question focused on social workers’ perceptions of Social Work England and how we effectively regulate the profession.

We asked social workers how much they agreed with the statement: "I am confident that Social Work England effectively regulates the social work profession?"

There was a mixed response from respondents, although more were positive. Over 40% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Social Work England was an effective regulator, 35% responded neutrally, and 25% of respondents strongly disagreed.

Looking at what social workers told us in answer to this question, we see a diverse range of responses. Some examples of positive responses are:

“Social Work England is a breath of fresh air, new ideas, good support and learning development. Great improvement on previous registration organisations.”

Neutral and negative responses noted concerns around some aspects of regulation. For example, the timeliness and fairness of our fitness to practise processes. Most social workers who commented on fitness to practise did not have direct experience of it. Instead, they drew insight from the experiences of colleagues, social media, or news articles.

“I read a lot of articles that report issues with Social Work England and its processes, however, I have not had any issues myself.”

Most neutral and negative responses also linked Social Work England’s effectiveness with some of the challenges facing the profession. For example:

“The job is wonderful, we are diligent and compassionate, but there is too much work, we need many, many more social workers, however our county […] say we have enough. All that happens is staff go long term sick and we employ more and more agency or apprentices… and impact more and more revolving door families”

We are aware of the difficulties social workers face and the need to ensure our regulation reflects an understanding of these challenges. As a professional regulator, we do not regulate social work employers. We do not set standards or campaign on issues relating to working conditions or environment as this is not part of our role or remit.

Some social workers were unclear about our role as a professional regulator and our primary objective to protect the public. There were some responses asking for more information on benefits, support and services we provide for social workers.

“It would be good to hear from Social Work England more about what services are provided. I am much more aware of BASW [British Association of Social Workers] while have more limited knowledge of the scope of Social Work England's work. I know it is a regulatory body.”

Social Work England does not represent the profession or perform the role of a professional body. We do not represent the views, interests or opinions of social workers or any other group of people. Our purpose is to protect the public and to raise standards across social work in England. We therefore act on behalf of the public to promote and maintain confidence in the profession.

Throughout our work, we have committed to being be open and honest about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. We seek feedback and continue to talk to and collaborate with everyone who has an interest in social work to improve our role. That is why we wanted to measure current perceptions and better understand where we need to strengthen our relationship with the profession.

For some, regulation is still viewed as a process of annual compliance. This needs to shift into a sustained conversation on what it means to be a social worker and why social work is regulated. To shift this dial we will continue to use our levers of communication, engagement and policy to proactively seek out opportunities to inform, educate people on the role we play as a national organisation across one social work profession.

As the professional regulator for social work, our duty is to promote and maintain public confidence in social workers in England. Our strategy for 2023 to 2026 reflects this. We have a specific objective on building trust and confidence in the social work profession and regulation by strengthening our relationship with the sector. It is important for us to reflect on both perceptions within and outside of the profession and to look at what that tells us.

We have an ongoing commitment to understand how social workers view (all of the following):

• the professional standards
• regulation
• the value of social work
• our role as a regulator.

As a new regulator 5 years into our journey to enable positive change in social work, we recognise that shifts will be incremental. This survey aims to benchmark perceptions so that we can further refine as we go to achieve that longer term mission. We will continue to explore our initial findings from this survey through further engagement and discussion with social workers next year.

We hope to increase recognition and understanding of social work as a regulated profession by sharing these findings. It is encouraging to see the value social workers place on their professional standards, as well as their dedication to improving people’s lives. This is a mission that we share with the profession that we regulate.

We want to understand peoples’ perception of us, to help us to learn and improve how we effectively regulate. This means not only our processes and systems, but also how we effectively use our communication, engagement and policy initiatives as part of that mission to enable positive change in the profession through our regulation.

We recognise that many factors will shape social workers’ responses. For example, their working environment or working conditions. We found that social workers want to feel confident to apply and maintain the professional standards. For them to do this, there needs to be more support from managers and employing organisations. We want to ensure that there is awareness of this so we will continue to engage with:

• the government
• representative bodies
• employers
• social workers

We acknowledge that there’s work to do to help social workers understand our fitness to practise processes. We want to ensure social workers understand (all of the following):

• the nature of the fitness to practise referrals we receive
• the support we provide to registrants and witnesses
• how cases progress through our fitness to practise process

Only a small number of social workers will have direct experience of fitness to practise. For example, by having a concern raised against them, through raising a concern, or by acting as a witness. So it is important we raise awareness and understanding of our processes.

By sharing the diversity data from social workers and the analysis of it, it helps us to ensure our fitness to practise processes are fair. Our analysis found that, in fitness to practise cases, there is an overrepresentation of:

• male social workers
• social workers who are Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British
• social workers over 40 years old

We are working to identify the causes of overrepresentation in our processes. It will hopefully highlight any improvements to the way we work.

We found that some social workers want to know more about the role of Social Work England and the regulation of their profession. We will communicate and engage with social workers to help them understand our role as a professional regulator. We will also continue to co-produce our work with people who have lived and learned experience of social work through to ensure our regulation lands with impact.

We will continue to explore how to shape our regulation to reflect the social work profession. We will do this by working with our forums including the:

• National Advisory Forum
• Education and Training Advisory Forum
• Practice Education Development Group
• National Workforce Roundtable

We value the insight and knowledge these forums provide. They help to ensure our approach to regulation remains relevant as the profession changes and evolves over time.

We will continue to seek social workers’ views to help us improve the way we regulate the profession. Our insight will help to identify where we can inform, educate and influence others on the role of social work in society. We will continue to promote social work by collaborating with social workers and people with lived and learned experience. We want the social work profession to be visible and valued throughout society.