Rethinking the regulation of Social Work: changes, challenges and choices

Abstract

This PhD by Publication focuses on social work regulation in England, the recent changes in regulator and the contemporary experiences of social workers as they encounter regulation in their working lives. Drawing on seven peer reviewed journal articles and one unpublished report (all published in the period 2016-2022), the thesis considers regulation in terms of social policy, fitness to practice experiences and legal principles, but also makes comparisons with sister professions and different national and international regulators in the Health and Social Work field. In contextualising these issues, the work draws on a wide range of literature from areas such as sociological theory, the sociology of professions, comparative policy analysis and notions of professional identity to try and understand why social work has experienced recent regulatory shifts and how this stream of centrally driven innovation has created the current landscape experienced by registrants.

A range of methodological approaches are used to gather related primary data and examine existing secondary data to develop an understanding of the challenges current regulatory practice presents, including in-depth, one to one interviews with current practitioners about their experiences of regulation. Having considered these changes and the challenges they present, attention is given to the choices that could be made to improve regulation – especially from the practitioner perspective. The thesis promotes the idea of shifting the balance of regulatory activity away from fitness to practice areas to more positive, proactive, enabling endeavours that might help the profession manage the emerging
complexity of contemporary practice whilst also offering greater protection to users of services. Applying concepts of ‘upstreaming’ and ‘formative spaces’, it is argued that by
shifting the regulatory gaze to practice before problems occur – rather than always dealing with the after-effects - we can better protect the public. Arguments are made for the
originality and significance of the work as a whole and include reference to an unpublished report constructed whilst the author was under secondment to the UK Department for
Education to develop policy options for the latest regulator, Social Work England.