New social work register comes on line

The new social work register was launched at the beginning of
last month.

The General Social Care Council, which regulates social services
staff, will run the register. Staff registering will have to pay a
fee of £30 but some councils, such as Greenwich in south east
London, are considering paying the fee for their social
workers.
Currently, registration is voluntary but the GSCC hopes that by
2005 it will be a compulsory requirement for all social workers to
register.

The GSCC aims to register all social workers within 18 months.
After that it hopes to register 60,000 social care workers a year
and aims to register everyone working in social care – an
estimated 1.5 million workers. Liberal Democrat social care
spokesperson Paul Burstow said that the rate of registration meant
20 years would elapse before the 1.5 million workers would be
registered. The government rejected this and added that every
member of the workforce was now required to abide by the social
care code of conduct introduced last September.

The first organisations at which social workers will be
registering are Hampshire Council and Children’s charities
Barnardo’s and NSPCC.