Equality, diversity and inclusion quarterly updates

This update is for the period January to March 2026.  

Alongside our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) action plan we’re aiming to bring you some of the highlights of the work completed each quarter. As this is the first of these updates, we have included work completed during the 2025 to 2026 year. 

Looking ahead, our EDI and co-production objectives will be fully integrated into both our business plan and our wider strategy. This marks an important evolution in our approach. By aligning our EDI priorities with our core planning and performance frameworks, we are reinforcing our long-term commitment to making inclusion, fairness and lived experience central to decision-making, service delivery and organisational culture.

Our work this quarter 

Single Point of Contact (SPOC) network 

Social Work England has had a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) at every local authority in England and other organisations employing social workers since 2021.These SPOCs act as a central link between employers and Social Work England. They support the appropriate handling of concerns about social workers that may need regulatory intervention and share insights on common referral themes to help inform and educate the profession.  

A key aim of this network is to encourage the effective use of local resolution, recognising that in many cases concerns can be addressed more quickly and proportionately at a local level. This approach can offer real benefits to everyone involved, provided it does not prevent appropriate regulatory where it may be required. 

Through ongoing work with employers and SPOCs, Social Work England is seeking to better understand how local processes operate in practice and how they can be strengthened. This includes:  

• developing and embedding fair referral principles 
• helping to ensure appropriate concerns are resolved as close as possible to where they arise 
• maintaining a clear and accessible route for matters that require formal regulatory investigation. 

By carefully managing this approach and maintaining the right balance, Social Work England aims to promote a proportionate, consistent and confident fitness to practise system that protects the public while supporting professional standards across the sector. 

Our fair referral principles 

These fair referral principles are designed to help employers of social workers decide when to raise a fitness to practise concern with the regulator.  The principles are particularly important for those groups currently over-represented in fitness to practise proceedings, a problem identified through analysis of diversity data.  

By encouraging employers to apply consistent, equitable  principles when making referrals, the principles aim to reduce disproportionality in the system and ensure that referrals made to Social Work England are applied fairly across the social work workforce. 

As well as drawing on our own data and insights, we have engaged with Skills for Care and representatives from organisations signed up to the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC –WRES) and other stakeholders, including the Professional Standards Authority to inform our approach. 

Advancing anti-racist practice across the Eastern Region 

We have been working on a joint pilot project with the East Region and strategic engagement team. 

The project seeks to understand the lived experience of Black, male, social work practitioners and leaders, gathering qualitative insights to inform social justice-based solutions. The learning will support reflection on current processes and contribute to the development of early resolution and restorative leadership. As this is a pilot, we have the ambition that these findings could be expanded further into other regions via the Principal Social Worker Networks. 

You can find out more about the aims of the project, as well as early findings, by signing up to the Social Work Week 2026 session presented by Improvement East. 

Anti-racism training for decision makers 

We are strengthening our commitment to anti-racism by developing a dedicated training programme for all Social Work England staff and partners involved in fitness to practise  processes. While anti-racism is a central focus, the programme will take a broader approach to addressing bias and inequity— recognising that people's experiences are shaped by multiple, overlapping characteristics such as race, gender, and disability. 

This builds on the training we delivered in 2024 to 2025 that focused on improving fitness to practise operations. As part of this staff were trained on:  

• the Equality Act 2010 
• handling challenging communications 
• enhancing confidence in managing interactions with social workers, witnesses and complainants 

The training will be grounded in real data and insights drawn from fitness to practise casework, ensuring it remains evidence-led and responsive to emerging findings. Our goal is to ensure a fair, reflective process that acknowledges and addresses the different ways individuals may experience fitness to practise proceedings, helping to reduce bias and promote equitable outcomes. Our aim is to build on a transparent and culturally competent fitness to practise system. We want our system to not only addresses bias where it arises but proactively promotes consistency, proportionality and equitable outcomes for all those involved. 

Data and insight analysis  

After publishing a summary report on our analysis of diversity data in our fitness to practise processes, we have updated our analytical methods to better understand why certain groups are overrepresented in our fitness to practise process.  

Rather than relying on our initial analysis alone, we are exploring a broader range of factors and applying more detailed data analysis techniques to gain deeper insight. This more in-depth approach will provide insight into the influences behind the patterns we observed. 

We hope to be able to share an update on the key findings from this deeper look into the analytics during the next quarter.  

To find out more about our work in this area, and others mentioned in the first of these quarterly updates, visit our equality, diversity and inclusion section of the website.