Draft Social Workers Regulations 2018

Conor McGinn Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Social Workers Regulations 2018.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. These regulations are crucial for delivering the Government’s social work reform agenda. At its heart, social work is a vital profession that promotes social change and individual and collective wellbeing, and that challenges social injustice. We are committed to do all we can to develop a strong and consistently effective social work profession that is well trained, competent and properly supported to transform the lives of the most vulnerable.

Establishing Social Work England, as provided for under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, as the new single profession regulator for social workers in England is vital to achieve our ambitions for the profession and for this country’s most vulnerable children and adults. Like the other health and social care regulators, Social Work England’s primary focus will be public protection, but we aim to enable it to operate streamlined, proportionate and efficient systems and processes. It needs to be able to adapt to emerging opportunities and challenges, and to promote best practice in social work. Providing for a specialist regulator that sets profession-specific standards will ensure that regulation reflects the changing reality of delivering social work practice safely and effectively.

Introducing these regulations signals another significant step forward in establishing Social Work England, although we have already made great strides in that respect. In March, we appointed Lord Patel of Bradford as its chair, and in June, we announced that Colum Conway had been appointed its chief executive. Those appointments bring significant experience in social work practice, education and regulation, and have been warmly welcomed by the sector. The momentum continues with recruitment for other senior posts and non-executive board members.

I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge the significant input from the social work sector, other professional regulators and hon. Members during the passage of the 2017 Act and in developing the regulations.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister share the concern of many in the sector that by introducing that change through delegated rather than primary legislation, it is something of a power grab by the Secretary of State? We want a strong independent regulator that works with the sector; we do not want Whitehall to take control through the back door.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I eagerly disagree with that sentiment. As I hope to share with the Committee, professionals in the sector and many stakeholders support and applaud the steps we are taking to create the regulator.

In December 2016, we established the Social Work England advisory group, which has representatives from sector organisations, social workers, employers and, of course, service users. In October 2017, we established the regulator expert group, which brings together experts from the world of professional regulation to shape and challenge our thinking. Those groups have been invaluable in advising us on this complex task.

We consulted on the regulatory framework for Social Work England in February and March, and we received nearly 200 responses that were overwhelmingly in favour of our proposals, including 43 from sector and regulatory organisations. We also held 11 events to consult directly with social workers, education providers and interested parliamentarians. I welcome those contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Social workers are ultimately answerable not only to their employers, but to the young people and adults they serve in the work that they do. The level of cases has to be appropriate, but it is decided by the practice leaders and those professionals who work with them. I have discovered in my six months in the job that those social workers who perform at the highest quality are the ones that are the best supported. I have seen it in Hackney, Doncaster and other parts of the country, where the profession has been really effective by being supported well by its leadership and having the confidence to make those decisions that are crucial in safeguarding children, certainly in my area.

Maintaining the quality of professional education ensures that students meet the necessary standards for registration and public protection. That is crucial for both initial education and post-qualifying courses. Importantly, Social Work England will be required to reapprove courses over time, and be able to consult on and determine its own role in the post-qualification space. Legislative provisions allow the regulator to approve post-qualifying courses through existing approval processes set in regulations and rules.

An effective fitness-to-practise system is also critically important, both in public protection and public confidence in social work as a regulated profession. As the PSA has pointed out, existing fitness-to-practise systems can be expensive and overly adversarial. We have taken account of this and the PSA’s and Law Commission’s proposals for reform, by designing a more flexible and proportional fitness-to-practise system for Social Work England. This system ensures that investigatory and adjudicatory functions—it is a bit of a mouthful, Mr Pritchard—remain separate, while providing the regulator with new tools to deliver public protection more flexibly and efficiently. That includes streamlined approaches, such as automatic removal where registrants are convicted of serious criminal offences, such as rape or murder, and swifter processes where registrants have been convicted of criminal offences with custodial sentences.

Social Work England will also be able to resolve cases without a hearing where the registrant accepts the facts of the case and the outcome proposed by the regulator. The regulations make it clear that this can only be used where it is in the public interest and the registrant has provided explicit consent, thereby ensuring adequate safeguards. The PSA has been clear that it wants oversight of such cases and I am pleased to confirm that that will be provided as soon as a legislative vehicle can be found to amend the PSA’s primary legislation. We will also explore extending such oversight to other regulators operating similar accepted outcomes consensual disposal systems.

I want to provide reassurance about the role of the Secretary of State in relation to Social Work England. Social Work England is a separate legal entity in the form of a non-departmental public body, operating at arm’s length from Government. The Secretary of State will, therefore, necessarily have a role in two specific areas. The first is oversight of regulatory rules and powers in the event of default by the regulator in the performance of its functions. We have provided Social Work England with flexibility on how it makes those rules—the detailed procedures and requirements that set out how its functions will be carried out. That will allow Social Work England to change its operational processes efficiently. Rules will be subject to public consultation and to oversight by the Secretary of State. The flexible oversight procedure in the regulations, which has been refined drawing on feedback received through the consultation, provides for a 28-day review period for the Secretary of State. The rules come into force automatically if no objection is raised, or earlier if the Secretary of State agrees. Social Work England is also able to specify a later date to provide maximum implementation flexibility. The Secretary of State may also draw on independent advice from the PSA.

[Conor McGinn]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Has he not just given an elegant description of the fact that the Secretary of State’s word will be final? If the Secretary of State wants any new regulations amended or modified, the regulator has to do it. The Minister talks of arm’s-length independence and the advisory role of the Secretary of State, but that is actually not the case, because the Secretary of State’s word is final and he or she can make the regulator do what he or she says.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Again, respectfully, I disagree because, as I hope I have demonstrated, we have taken on board the views of the Law Commission and the PSA and have consulted deeply to ensure that the new regulator is modern and meets the demands and requirements of the profession.