Fewer qualified social workers in a decade

The head of a Scottish executive programme looking at innovative
practice in social work believes there will be fewer qualified
social workers in 10 years’ time, writes Derren
Hayes at Community Care Live Scotland.

Keith Makin, programme director of Care 21 – which is
based in the policy co-ordination division of the executive –
said that he expected some functions currently carried out by
social workers to be with less qualified staff allowing the
development of a smaller, but more focused, group of qualified
social workers.

“At the moment we don’t use our qualified social
work resources efficiently enough,” Makin, who was social
services director at Dumfries and Galloway Council up until early
2003, explained. “A lot of them are engaged in tasks that
could be carried out by someone else.

“If we enabled them [another group of workers] to do these
tasks we could be in a position where social workers can
concentrate on carrying out their core tasks.”

He envisaged qualified social workers would be those that had a
degree in social work and would be registered as having the title
with the Scottish General Social Care Council.

Care 21 is looking at current practices in social services,
challenging them and developing innovative new ways of working and
delivering services. Its work will dovetail with that of the
executive’s current overall review of social work in
Scotland.

More from www.scotland.gov.uk/socialwork/swsi