Collection of your equality, diversity, and inclusion data

We're committed to understanding the diversity of the social work profession in England. An important part of this is collecting diversity data.

Why we're asking for this data

We’re asking social workers to provide further diversity data through a voluntary survey on their online account. This will help us to:

• identify where social workers may be impacted by inequality or discrimination (such as in fitness to practise referrals)
• better understand the impact of our policies (such as in relation to the annual review of continuing professional development)
• ensure fairness in our processes (such as our overseas application process)
• build a more accurate and detailed picture of the social work profession

As a regulator, we are also subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty. Under the duty we must:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by act
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not

The diversity data we are collecting

Answering the diversity questions is not mandatory. It is not a requirement of registration, but we encourage you to answer them. This will help us understand the diversity of the social work profession across England.

The additional data we’re collecting:

• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Religion and belief
• Sexual orientation

You can answer 'prefer not to say' or skip any question(s) you don’t want to answer. If you do answer the questions, you will be able to change or delete your responses at any time on your online account.

Data we require as part of our rules

To join the register or renew your registration as a social worker, you need to provide your date of birth.

Following a consultation, we have removed gender identity from our mandatory data collection in line with Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) guidance.

This was in response to new Government PSED guidance (2023) which states: “Authorities should take care to undertake their assessment by reference to the protected characteristics set out in the act. They should not use concepts such as gender or gender identity, which are not encoded in the act and can be understood in different ways.”

Gender identity itself is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. However, we chose to use this term in our rules following a public consultation.

Who will be able to access your diversity data

The data we collect will be accessible by employees involved in data analysis, interpretation and reporting, and our IT team for operational purposes. We restrict access to equality and diversity data, and it will not be used to inform any decisions about your registration or fitness to practise.

How we decided on our approach

As the specialist regulator for around 100,000 social workers in England, we acknowledge that people may debate our decisions. These decisions have been informed by:

• Talking to our internal staff networks, including the equality, diversity, inclusion steering group, race equality network and the LGBTQ+ network
• Consideration of data protection requirements
• Stonewall guidance
• Guidance from the Office for National Statistics
• Equality Act 2010
• Explanatory Notes to the Equality Act 2010

We keep all decisions about the data we collect under review and remain open to feedback. This is in line with our organisational values and the values of social work. We are open to taking different approaches in the future, where it is justifiable.

On 18 December 2023, the Government published guidance to help public authorities comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty in their policies, programmes and services. We are currently reviewing how we collect diversity data in light of this guidance.

For more information

We recognise that you may have further questions and concerns about:

• what data we collect
• the purpose for collecting your data
• how we will use your data

You can find the answers to those questions in our privacy notice.

If you have any further questions, you can contact us.