Ethics and Values in Social Work, Fourth Edition

The major changes are continuing in the field of social work, social care and social welfare services more generally in Britain. Having established regulatory bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in 2002 to register social care practitioners and oversee professional education, proposals are now being made to move the regulatory functions for England to a broader body that also registers health professions. Having developed complex electronic mechanisms for the surveillance and tracking of certain categories of social work service users, particularly children and young people, some of these systems have been abandoned or significantly revised as they have proved to be ineffective, unwieldy and too costly to maintain in a time of economic austerity. Calls for a greater focus on professional judgement and discretion, rather than procedures and bureaucracy, are beginning to be heeded, at least in the field of child protection.