The social work profession deserves a specialist regulator

I was heartened by aspects of Penny Thompson’s interview earlier this month (news, p9, 2 September) but finished with a knot in my stomach about one overriding issue.
Why can’t the government acknowledge the need for social work to be independently regulated, or at the very least respect the need for a proper consultation on the matter?
To announce the abolition of the General Social Care Council so suddenly and then suggest the Health Professions Council simply takes up the reins is a source of real frustration to me and to all social workers I have spoken to about the move. Forgive the pun, but when will the penny drop and the GSCC join the British Association of Social Workers and others in demanding recognition that social work is not health or education – it is a profession with its own qualifications and registration requirements that needs an expert body to oversee regulation.
Above all, social workers and social work students need to be regulated by an organisation which owns and shares the ethics and values of social work. Examples of why such expertise is needed are all too numerous.
For instance, too many students are afforded excessive leniency in advancing towards social work qualification because academics fail to recognise unethical and dangerous practice.
This is not so much the fault of the academics as clear systemic failures that allow, in some cases, people employed to teach such unrelated subjects as geology to oversee the work of social work students. How can they be expected to clearly understand the complex task of becoming and being a social worker?
Social workers must be regulated by professionals who hold and practise that identity.
Fran Fuller
Chair, BASW

See Penny Thompson interview