Social Work England welcomes National Inclusion Week with continuing commitment to tackle inequalities and discrimination

The regulator for social workers in England has reinforced its commitment to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion across the social work sector through the expansion of its anti-racism pilot across new regions in England.

The pilot, previously run in the East of England, explores the experience of Black, male social work practitioners and leaders, and has already informed new training being delivered to decision-makers involved in the fitness to practise process, helping to build awareness of how bias and other factors can influence decision-making.

This sits alongside Social Work England’s broader programme of activity which includes the development and implementation of fair referral principles, ongoing engagement sessions with social work employers, and collaboration on workforce race equity initiatives including the Social Work Workforce Race Equality Standard.

The regulator is also investing in its research capability and will publish more regular reporting on diversity data across the social work register and fitness to practise process.

This announcement comes as the regulator published its latest research and analysis into its diversity data in its fitness to practise process to mark its commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion during National Inclusion Week.

This shows that cases involving social workers who were either Black, African, Caribbean and Black British, aged 40 to 49, or who were men, were more likely to progress at different stages of the fitness to practise process.

Cases involving Black, African, Caribbean and Black British social workers were more likely to progress at both the triage and case examiner stages of the process, even after taking account of a wide range of other factors.

Referral source, and the nature of the concerns raised, were the strongest and most consistent predictors of case progression at every stage. Employer referrals were more likely to progress than referrals from members of the public at every stage of the process. Cases involving convictions, safeguarding and dishonesty were more likely to progress than those involving poor communication.

Sarah Blackmore, executive director for professional practice and external engagement, said:

“These findings matter because every social worker who goes through the fitness to practise process deserves to know that it is fair, proportionate and applied consistently to everyone.

“We are committed to positive and sustained action here. This is why our equality, diversity and inclusion work is embedded across everything we do at Social Work England in the hope of making the biggest difference.

“We know there is a lot more to do. We hope by sharing these findings we can continue to be transparent about our processes and work with social workers, their employers and those who use social work services to tackle discrimination and overrepresentation in referrals.”