National Social Work Agency to be created to promote profession in Scotland

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The agency will sit within the Scottish Government and support the work of the national chief social work adviser, which will also be created by the new law. This puts the existing chief social work adviser role – held by Iona Colvin since 2017 – on a statutory footing.

Under the Care Reform (Scotland) Bill, the adviser’s role will be to provide guidance to ministers on social work policy and the protection of people at risk of harm, and to produce an annual report on the state of the profession and its workforce.

‘Promoting the social work profession’

Though the functions of the agency were not outlined on the face of the bill, social care minister Maree Todd told the Scottish Parliament last week that it would “spearhead the effort to promote the social work profession, strengthening collaboration and improving education and professional development”.

The Scottish Government has previously said that the agency would oversee social work qualifications, workforce planning, improvement, training, professional development and pay and grading within a national framework, though it is not clear how far it will hold all of these functions.

Todd added that the national chief social work adviser would “champion social work” and “provide professional leadership at a national level”.

What social care legislation includes

The bill also includes:

• A right for unpaid carers (including young carers) to take sufficient breaks from their caring role. To support this, the Scottish Government has increased funding for its voluntary sector short breaks fund for 2025-26 by £5m, taking it to £13m.
• Duties on care home providers to identify an “essential care supporter” for each resident – typically a family member or friend – and to facilitate visits to, and by, residents, with a presumption that suspending visits by a resident’s essential care supporter would cause serious harm.
• New standards for the provision of independent advocacy to people using social care, along with a duty on ministers to report periodically on the availability of advocacy services in the country and, if this has not increased since the last review, to set out plans to increase provision.
• The creation of digital care records for everyone receiving health or social care services in the country, to enable information sharing between agencies and provide people with the right to access information about themselves.

National care service plans ditched

However, following widespread opposition, the Scottish Government ditched plans last year to create a so-called “national care service” with responsibility for adult social care in Scotland.

The SNP government’s original plans, issued in 2022, had been for ministers to take control of adult social care, with services commissioned nationally through regional care boards, which would be under ministerial direction, in a move designed to end a “postcode lottery” of provision in Scotland.

This was watered down, in 2023, when, the government said it would share accountability for the national care service with the NHS and councils, and that local authorities would remain responsible for employing adult social work and social care staff.

However, last year, it scrapped the plans altogether, with Todd concluding that it was clear that its proposals were not supported by the Scottish Parliament.