“Social Work in England: First Reflections” report shares reflections on SWE’s first year as specialist regulator for social workers, including an overview of its fitness to practise activity.

SWE Fitness to Practise: A year in review

Social Work England (SWE) officially took over responsibility for regulating social work in England on 2 December 2019 from the previous regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council.

SWE inherited 1,545 live investigations. Over our first year, it recorded a further 1,9826 concerns.

Insights: Source of fitness to practise referrals

Most concerns to SWE are raised by members of the public, followed by employers.

Insights: Fitness to practise concerns by type

Concerns raised to SWE have included themes of poor or inappropriate communication (25.7%), dishonesty (23.2%) or safeguarding concerns (16.2%).

Investigating concerns during COVID-19

During the peak of the pandemic, SWE took the decision to deprioritise progressing lines of enquiry with employers and social workers in relation to lower risk cases.

However, parties not engaged with frontline COVID-19 response and higher risk cases continued to be investigated and progressed through Social Work England’s fitness to practise process.

“Social Work in England: First Reflections” report shares reflections on SWE’s first year as specialist regulator for social workers, including an overview of its fitness to practise activity.

SWE Fitness to Practise: A year in review

Social Work England (SWE) officially took over responsibility for regulating social work in England on 2 December 2019 from the previous regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council.

SWE inherited 1,545 live investigations. Over our first year, it recorded a further 1,9826 concerns.

Insights: Source of fitness to practise referrals

Most concerns to SWE are raised by members of the public, followed by employers.

Insights: Fitness to practise concerns by type

Concerns raised to SWE have included themes of poor or inappropriate communication (25.7%), dishonesty (23.2%) or safeguarding concerns (16.2%).

Investigating concerns during COVID-19

During the peak of the pandemic, SWE took the decision to deprioritise progressing lines of enquiry with employers and social workers in relation to lower risk cases.

However, parties not engaged with frontline COVID-19 response and higher risk cases continued to be investigated and progressed through Social Work England’s fitness to practise process.

Dishonesty in fitness to practise cases

From Social Work England’s fitness to practise data, dishonesty accounted for 23% of all concerns it received.  Unfortunately, the report did not provide any further insight as to the proportion of these cases that progressed beyond the triage stage.

Given the high prevalence of complaints of dishonesty in social work, social workers might be interested to read our recent article, “Dishonesty in fitness to practise cases” to understand the issues surrounding dishonesty in fitness to practise and how this might impact on their fitness to practise.