Social Work England business plan 2025 to 2026

Social Work England has published its business plan for 2025 to 2026, outlining what the regulator aims to achieve during the year. The plan sets out Social Work England’s objectives for the third and final year of its 2023 to 2026 strategy.

The plan has been informed by ongoing collaboration with key stakeholders in social work and regulation, as well as government policy objectives. It doesn’t describe everything the regulator will deliver, but highlights priority objectives, key deliverables and how it will measure that it is meeting these.

The business plan covers the period of 1 April 2025 to 1 April 2026. During this time, its objectives are to:

1. Build trust and confidence in social work and in regulation by engaging with the profession, stakeholders, people with lived experience and the public.
2. Embed our research function to enhance and inform our understanding of the profession, to positively impact public policy through evidence-based advice and insight.
3. Reflect on the learning from our recent review of continuing professional development (CPD) to advance a more comprehensive and valued approach to our CPD requirements, with staged implementation.
4. Refine and develop our approach to social work education and training, working in partnership with providers and the social work sector to improve the consistency and quality of courses, and the readiness of graduates for professional practice.
5. Build a more in-depth knowledge of the practice education landscape to inform and support the critical role of practice educators, including exploring potential regulatory levers.
6. Take action to improve timeliness in our triage, investigations and case examiner functions whilst maintaining decision making quality.
7. Take action to address the hearings backlog.
8. Identify and realise further efficiency and effectiveness opportunities in our hearings and case review functions.
9. Finalise and start to implement our new digital, data and technology strategy.
10. Adopt and embed our new behaviours framework.

Colum Conway, Chief Executive of Social Work England, said:

“Our business plan is guided by our legislation and statutory responsibilities, and by our values and guiding principles. These include our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and co-production, our aspiration to continually learn through the effective use of data and insight, and our ambition to deliver the best possible value for money.

We will continue to work closely with social workers, people with lived experience of social work and our other stakeholders to deliver our mission to protect the public and enable positive change in social work.”

Read our 2025 to 2026 business plan.