Agreement reached on development of a single College of Social Work

The development of a stronger, more confident and better supported social work profession has moved forward after BASW – The College of Social Work (BASW/CoSW) and The College of Social Work (TCSW) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) committing both parties to working towards establishing a single UK-wide College of Social Work.

The agreement, subject to the approval of BASW/CoSW’s membership, outlines a clear path for creating a new entity, The College of Social Work, by January 2012. The single College would benefit from BASW/CoSW’s 41 years of promoting and supporting the profession, plus the impetus TCSW offers through its emergence from the Social Work Taskforce, which enjoyed near unanimous political and professional support.

The MoU, agreed and signed by both parties after a series of discussions, provides a framework for working through key issues and advancing a complex development process which will lead to the launch of a new College. The document outlines ambitious plans to develop a college capable of securing real change for a profession that lacks the public support and understanding of many other valuable public service disciplines.

Social work needs real and sustained change if it is to effectively overcome the challenges that currently beset the profession – high caseloads, high vacancy rates, poor morale and the absence of sustained political support. The development of a united College, strong and powerful enough to secure real change, offers the chance to challenge those failures and enable social work to prosper.

A joint working group of BASW Council and TCSW Interim Board members has been established to undertake detailed thinking; reciprocal governance arrangements are in place so that each governing body can have a non-voting seat on the other party’s governing body. Officers have been asked to undertake detailed work on a range of issues, including the constitutional arrangements for a federated UK structure, the business model, trade unions and staffing arrangements.

Commenting after the MoU was signed, BASW/CoSW Chair Fran Fuller said: “This is a very significant development in ensuring social work can become the proud, confident and respected profession that we know it deserves to be. We are delighted that the expertise and experience that BASW/CoSW has accumulated over 41 years, as well as the unique array of member benefits we offer, will be part of a new and potentially very powerful College. There are still important issues to resolve, of course, but we now have a solid mechanism to work through them together in the best interests of the profession.”

The College of Social Work’s Interim Co-Chair Maurice Bates said: “We are very pleased to have made significant progress in our discussions with BASW. We can now focus on building a new College, providing the profession with a strong and powerful body, led by its members, accountable to its members; ensuring that the profession is properly understood by the public and properly represented to policy makers, to employers and the media.”