The next government should increase social work bursaries, review practitioners’ caseloads and salaries and boost social care funding following the forthcoming UK general election.
Those were among 40 policies the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) wants to see political parties adopt in their election manifestos with a view to implementing them in the next Parliament.
BASW set out its proposals in its own manifesto for social work, issued today, which it plans to use as a lobbying tool to influence politicians between now and polling day, which most pundits expect to be in October or November 2024.
The policies are based on existing campaigns led by BASW and its sister organisation, the Social Workers Union (SWU), findings from the association’s annual surveys – the latest of which was published last week – and feedback from members and people with lived experience of social work.
They are a mixture of social work-specific measures, proposals relating to social care more widely and ideas concerning adjacent policy areas, such as welfare, housing and asylum.
What BASW is calling for
On social work, it is calling for:
- A comprehensive review of pay, terms, and working conditions in England, alongside a national recruitment strategy to promote the profession and tackle current workforce pressures.
- A review of caseloads in England examining how to implement the principles of BASW’s 80:20 campaign, which aims to increase the share of time practitioners spend on direct work from the 20% identified in a 2018 survey of its members.
- An increase in the availability and value of social work bursaries in England, which have been frozen for 10 years.
- Funding to implement nationally the social care workforce race equality standard (SC-WRES), which tracks racial inequalities in the social care workforce in local authorities in England. This is currently being employed by 23 of the 153 councils, however, it is no longer funded by government.
- A review of the statutory guidance under the Care Act 2014 to strengthen the role of social workers in upholding people’s entitlements to care and support.
- People with learning disabilities and autistic people at risk of admission to a mental health hospital, or currently in hospital, in England to have a named social worker to uphold their human rights and advocate on their behalf.
- The dismantling of the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB), a Home Office agency that employs social workers to carry out age assessments of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people. BASW argues that the NAAB opens up the age assessment process to political interference. The association also wants to see an end to the use of so-called scientific methods of age assessment – x-rays or scans of teeth or bones – which are now legally permissible but are seen as unethical by several medical bodies, as well as by BASW.
- An increase in the UK-wide non-taxable allowance for driving for work purposes from 45p to 60p per mile, to encourage employers to increase their mileage allowances for staff. The current rate has been in place since 2011.
In relation to social care more generally, the association’s proposed polices include:
- A commitment to sustainable funding for adult social care in England.
- Increasing children’s social care funding in England.
- Requiring providers of supported accommodation for looked-after children aged 16 and 17 in England to deliver care, rather than just support, contrary to the current regulatory regime for the sector.
- Urgent implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards across England and Wales – which the government has shelved beyond the next election – and, in the meantime, improvements to the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.
- A new Mental Health Act for England and Wales, replacing the current 1983 legislation, as the government has promised to do but is yet to implement.
Proposed measures outside social care include:
- Scrapping the two-child limit on receiving additional means-tested support through the benefits system, as well as the cap on the overall level of social security payments a household may receive, in order to reduce child poverty levels.
- Substantial and ongoing investment in social housing, to make housing more affordable, reducing pressures on social work services.
- Providing informal carers with paid leave from work, in the wake of the introduction of legislation allowing for unpaid leave.
- Repealing the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which places a duty on the home secretary to remove anyone from the UK who enters the country without the right to do so or the right to remain, and without having come directly from a country in which their life and liberty was threatened. This encompasses anyone arriving to claim asylum through the English Channel, though the policy’s implementation is dependent on the successful passage of the current Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which would enable the government to deport people deemed to have arrived illegally to Rwanda.
‘Key actions to improve disadvantaged people’s lives’
BASW chair Julia Ross (credit: Simon Hadley)
BASW chair Julia Ross said the association was determined to use the opportunity of the election “to drive much-needed change and improvements in areas that are important to our members, the social work profession and people with lived experience of social work and social care services”.
“This manifesto will be the lynchpin for our campaigning,” she added. It presents key actions that the next UK government, of whatever persuasion, can take to improve social work and social care, working conditions, and the lives of the most disadvantaged in Britain today.”
BASW faces significant challenges getting its proposed policies adopted by the Labour or Conservative parties – one of which will form the next government.
Neither mentioned social work in their 2019 manifestos, while the parties have not indicated they will make any significant offers on social care, besides Labour’s plan to establish a fair pay agreement, designed to improve care workers’ salaries and working conditions.
Labour, which is widely tipped to form the next government, has also taken a different stance to BASW on some of its proposed measures, by saying it would keep the two-child benefit limit (source: BBC) and not committing to repealing the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (source: UK in a Changing Europe).
Parties’ tight spending limits
In addition, many of BASW’s proposed policies require extra government spending, at a time when both parties are hemmed in by their shared fiscal rule to get public sector debt falling as a percentage of national income by the fifth year of rolling economic forecasts (source: UK Parliament).
To meet this, the current government has pencilled in average public spending rises of just 1% a year in real terms from 2025-26 to 2028-29 onwards.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the NHS, defence, overseas aid and childcare are likely to get more generous settlements than this, implying cuts of 3.4% a year on average in real terms to other services, including social care.
At the same time, neither party has indicated any intention to raise taxes to reduce or reverse potential cuts to public spending. The Conservatives are mooting further tax cuts beyond the reduction of 4 percentage points in employee national insurance contributions made this year, while Labour has pledged relatively small and specific tax rises, such as its promise to levy VAT on private schools to fund state education.
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Reviewing caseloads won’t be the answer. It will just mean longer waiting lists or more pressure on social workers to close cases faster. The only time a team reviews its number of assessors is when they restructure. I’ve seen many restructures, but I’ve never known a caseload management tool be used in any, in fact they normally delete posts to meet unrealistic savings targets. What we need is a caseload management tool for adults and children that can be applied to any case, then workers will be protected and managers can prove what can and can’t be be achieved with the workforce they have.
A national recruitment strategy might focus on encouraging more men to join the profession as statistically, they increasingly continue to ignore social work as a career option.
The new BASW manifesto contains many crucial points that the next government needs to address to ‘get it right’ in terms of social work and the profession’s key concerns and challenges.
There is, however, one glaring omission.
This new BASW manifesto fails to engage at all with the scourge of privatisation/private equity in children’s & adults’ social care.
This is despite widespread concern among members, as indicated by a successful motion on the matter at the 2022 BASW AGM, as well increasing evidence of the human and economic harm associated with profit-making in social care.
This raises two important questions:
– Why isn’t BASW taking into consideration members’ motions, especially those of key and pressing concern, when drafting an important, avowedly representative document like this?
– What influence is being brought to bear that could have led to such a notable omission?
Christian Kerr asks two of the most important questions about democracy and representation in/by BASW. Given that BASW leadership over time have refused to engaged with members over these issues I alongside perhaps many others, have cancelled my BASW membership. Tea and biscuits at the side of the high table doesn’t promote social work nor represent membership priorities. BASW is now no more than a top down bureaucratic entity more concerned with its respectability than being a radical thorn in the side of the establishment it seems more than happy to cosy up to and be a part of. My cancellation thoughts started with my real anger at how close and unchallenging BASW is with SWE, particularly over FtP investigations, and end with the sad realisation that BASW has lost sight of what it should be. A membership organisation should never be a poor imitation of a quango.
Any organisation purporting to support the interests of the profession and the wellbeing of its professionals can be said to have failed, given how things are. The profession’s reputation is tarnished and social workers are defenceless against pressures in terms of workload and working hours. Its a complete and utter mess. I’m about to enter the profession and I’m dreading the impact that this career choice will have on my wellbeing, as is the case for all newly qualified social workers.