Response to General Dental Council (GDC) consultation on the review of the Standards for Education

4 February 2025

As the specialist regulator for social workers in England, we believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate—to protect the public, enable positive change and, ultimately, improve people’s lives.

Like the GDC, Social Work England also set standards for initial education and training in social work. We approve social work courses against these standards to ensure that students who successfully complete a course can meet our professional standards.

We also set education and training standards for 2 specialist multi-professional qualifications, the approved mental health professional (AMHP) and best interests assessor (BIA) courses. We will begin assessing courses against these standards for the first time over the next 12 months.

Our education and training standards for social work courses were published in 2021, and we are currently approaching the completion of our first reapproval cycle. We will then carry out a review of those standards before consulting on proposed amendments later this year.

The GDC’s consultation on their own education and training standards is therefore very timely, and we welcome the opportunity to comment on those standards, and to provide some feedback which we hope will support that work.

Consultation feedback

General feedback

In considering to this consultation, we thought it most helpful to offer comments on some areas of the standards and guidance that align with our own work as a regulator, rather than responding directly to the consultation questions.

We support the GDC undertaking a review of the Standards for Education as an opportunity to bring them up to date and reflect important changes in their strategic direction. As stated above, we are currently undertaking our own review of the education and training standards for social workers in England, and are therefore keen to hear more about the GDC’s and other regulator’s future plans for education and training as we begin to shape our own ambitions.

In principle, we support the revised education standards and guidance and find them to be clear and easy to understand. As a fellow regulator, we welcome the focus on multidisciplinary and collaborative working discussed in these frameworks.

Specific feedback on the standards

We welcome the proposal to group the standards into 4 areas, which provides clarity to the reader and makes the standards easier to navigate. We agree that the addition of descriptors helps to ensure providers are clear about how they can fully meet each standard. It also helps to prevent ambiguity when making judgements on whether a standard is met/partially met/not met, which is something we’ve sometimes found challenging in our own standards.

The opening paragraph for each standard is clear. However, adding titles or headings to each standard would support accessibility and provide clarity to the reader on what the priority areas are and help signpost around the standards and requirements.

Overall, the language used is clear and the shorter statements are easier to interpret. It is very clear which standards apply to all providers, and which only to assessment providers.

We are grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the GDC’s review of their education and training standards, and hope that you find our feedback helpful as you proceed with this valuable work.

We look forward to hearing more about your experiences of reviewing your standards as we prepare to do the same. We would also welcome working with the GDC and other regulators to explore how we learn about integrated and collaborative working and consider opportunities together that support our professions to raise standards and improve outcomes for people.

Yours sincerely

Colum Conway
Chief Executive