Professional Standards Authority publishes review of Social Work England’s performance in 2024

The Professional Standards Authority (the Authority) has published its annual monitoring review which provides further information on Social Work England’s performance for 1 January to 31 December 2024.

We are pleased to note that we have met 17 of 18 of the Professional Standards Authority’s  Standards of Good Regulation for the second consecutive year.

These standards cover all aspects of our work including general standards, guidance and standards, equality, diversity and inclusion, education and training, registration, and fitness to practise. They are designed to ensure that regulators are protecting the public, promoting professional standards and promoting confidence in health and care professionals.

Social Work England is one of 10 UK professional regulators overseen by the Authority that regulate and register healthcare professionals. Read the full review for 2024 on the Authority’s website.

Colum Conway, Chief Executive at Social Work England commented:

“We are confident in our performance and have once again met 17 out of 18 of the Standards for Good Regulation. However, we know this is not good enough and will never be good enough until we meet all 18 standards. While timeliness in our fitness to practise process continues to be a challenge, we do have a pathway to achieving standard 15 which requires additional funding over time. The delays in case progression are unacceptable for us and for everyone involved.”  

Our overall performance against the Standards of Good Regulation

For 2024 we met:

• 5 out of 5 general standards
• 2 out of 2 guidance and standards
• 2 out of 2 education and training standards
• 4 out of 4 registration standards
• 4 out of 5 fitness to practise standards

This year, the Authority has changed their assessment approach to standard 3. This standard asks that regulators demonstrate an understanding of the diversity of their registrants, patients and service users. When assessing us against this, they were confident we met the criteria and said that we show good practice by:

• having an emphasis on equality and inclusion in our professional standards, education and training standards, and supporting guidance
• engaging with a diverse range of stakeholders through our National Advisory Forum, regularly co-producing our work and often holding pre-consultation events

When reviewing our work against their education and training standards of good regulation, they were pleased to see our work progress with:

• the launch of new education and training standards for approved mental health professionals and best interests assessors
• the publication of our knowledge, skills, and behaviour statements
• our work in completing our inspections programme, and the review we are undertaking of our learnings from this  

The Authority is also confident that we continue to perform well against the registration standards of good regulation and were pleased to see the improvements in the time it was taking us to process overseas applications following the production of new guidance.

We met 4 out of 5 of the standards of good regulation under fitness to practise. The Authority is confident that:

• we continue to identify and prioritise cases that may cause risk to the public and interim orders continue to be in place where required
• that all decisions made are proportionate, consistent and fair
• that we have been undertaking a wider range of activities to reduce delays in our fitness to practise process

Due to continuing delays in case progression in our fitness to practise process the Authority found we did not meet standard 15. As this is the third year in a row that we have not met standard 15 the Authority has sent an escalation letter to the Secretaries of State for Education and Health and Social Care.