A house divided: social work colleges split loyalties

Plans to create a college of social work are in disarray after two bodies set up in direct competition. Can both survive?

The idea was to give social workers the status they have long sought and envied of other professions. By setting up a college of social work, eventually to become a royal college, it was hoped to make a fresh start and turn the page on a series of damaging scandals that culminated in the tragic case of Baby Peter.

The Labour government spoke of creating “an authoritative voice which can speak for social work and demonstrate strong commitment and high standards of excellence within the profession”. Committing £5m to the project, it declared last year: “Like the royal colleges in the health sector, the college of social work will help give the profession the standing it deserves and the status it needs to influence national policy-making and public debate.”

But events of the past week threaten to make a nonsense of those fine aspirations. Worse, say critical friends, social work risks confirming every popular prejudice about its supposed lack of professionalism and inability to run a proverbial whelk stall.

There are now not one, but two colleges of social work. One of them is the “official” version, government-funded and, since last Friday, open to prospective membership for social workers and students in England and associates throughout the UK. The other, launched on Monday in direct competition, is the renamed British Association of Social Workers (BASW), now known as BASW – The College of Social Work, claiming more than 10,000 members in England and some 3,000 more in the rest of the UK.

Leading figures in the social care sector have rushed to voice dismay at the feud. Moira Gibb, chief executive of Camden council in north London and chair of the social work taskforce that proposed establishing a college, has said: “The best interests of the social work profession require a single, strong, independent college of social work.” Allan Bowman, chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (Scie), which is overseeing development of the official college, has warned of the danger of “a potentially divisive and distracting public squabble”.

Others have directed comments more specifically at BASW. Penny Thompson, chief executive of the General Social Care Council, the existing regulatory body for social workers, has accused the association of “jeopardising the hard work that has gone into establishing the college”. And in a joint statement, the two associations representing directors of children’s services and those of adult services have said: “We do not think it is in the interests of the social work profession for BASW to set up an alternative college. And we do not support BASW in their attempt to do so.”

How has it come to this? On one level, the explanation looks straightforward. Having previously been involved in developing the official college, BASW walked out of the process when it was decided to reach an agreement with Unison, the public services union, by which college membership – which will cost a forecast £270 a year from spring 2012 – will include representation and employment advice by the union. As part of the deal, social workers who are Unison members will receive professional advice services from the college.

In a letter last Friday to the official college’s interim board, BASW chair Fran Fuller said: “We are advised that this agreement is unlawful and it is certainly anti-competitive because the substantial public funds available to the college will enable it to provide services currently offered by this independent professional association, exclusively to Unison members, at a considerable discount.”

On another level, though, BASW is tapping into wider concerns about the way the official college is being developed. These concerns have been expressed publicly by three respected elders of the profession – Bill McKitterick, Terry Bamford and Ray Jones, all former social services directors – who say that there has been an over-focus on membership benefits at the expense of professional issues, that the emerging structure does not involve lay social workers sufficiently and that spending has been too lavish in light of the organisation’s likely future income.

Hilton Dawson, BASW’s chief executive and a former Labour MP, is playing to these issues by stressing that his college will be “independent, led by social workers [and] democratically accountable to social workers from across Britain”. With half the government’s £5m development pot earmarked for the coming year, he says: “Frankly, we would suggest that the £2.5m due to Scie for 2011-12 is put to better use funding frontline social work services.”

BASW’s plan, which involves separate colleges for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, is to recruit 51% of all registered social workers by 2015. It intends to undercut the official college’s membership charge and is scheduling as many as 220 local recruitment meetings over the coming 14 months, campaigning on what Dawson calls the “parlous and disgraceful state of social work in this country”.

Over at the official college, meanwhile, project director Dorit Braun professes herself “nonplussed” by BASW’s actions. Insisting that the organisation is being developed “by, with and for the profession”, she says spending on necessary infrastructure has been appropriate and modest – citing an equivalent professional college with an annual budget of £8m – and says the Unison arrangement should have come as no surprise to the association.

“The really distressing part of all this is what people looking on will think,” says Braun. “Our hope is that this being played out mainly in the trade press and that there are not too many members of the public looking on in bewilderment, having their worst fears confirmed.”

The row may end up being played out in the courts, however. As part of its offensive, BASW has disclosed that it owns a company registration in the name of The College of Social Work. In her letter to the official college’s interim board, Fuller has said: “Given that you do not have a right to use the name … we must request that you cease to use this title forthwith.”