The standards for social work employers in England are under review, the Local Government Association (LGA) has revealed.
The LGA, which oversees the Standards for social work employers in England, said it was reviewing them with social work bodies and government with a view to publishing a revised version in autumn 2025.
The voluntary standards were last updated in 2020 and the review is designed to ensure they remain relevant, drawing on the results of the annual "social work health check", a survey of practitioners designed to gauge how far the standards are being upheld.
Besides the LGA, organisations involved in the review include the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS), British Association of Social Workers (BASW), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Department for Education (DfE) and Social Work England.
History of the standards
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there are statutory codes of practice or standards governing social care employers, produced by the relevant professional regulators and taken into account by inspectorates in their judgments of organisations.However, there is no equivalent in England. Though the 2009 Social Work Task Force called for the introduction of binding standards for employers, this did not happen, with voluntary standards being launched instead, in 2011.
What are the standards?
Under the eight standards, employers in England are expected to:- Have a strong and clear social work framework, which includes having a statement setting out the purpose of social work within the organisation and a clear model of social work practice, based on evidence of what works.
- Have effective workforce planning systems, including carrying out assessments of current and future workforce needs and ensuring social workers at all levels have the right knowledge and skills.
- Have safe workloads and case allocation, which includes a system, agreed with practitioners, to set transparent safe working levels in each service area and ensuring each social worker's workload is regularly assessed, to take account of complexity, the worker's capacity and their needs for supervision and CPD.
- Promote wellbeing, which includes supporting self-care, breaking down mental health stigma, enabling social workers and managers to raise concerns without fear of recrimination and having robust violence, aggression and lone worker policies to ensure practitioners can do their jobs safely.
- Provide supervision, with 90-minute sessions provided at least monthly for all social workers and weekly or fortnightly slots for newly qualified social workers, and employers ensuring that practitioners are able to critically reflect on and identify their learning needs.
- Provide continuing professional development, which includes offering dedicated time, resources and support for social workers to carry out CPD and enabling practitioners to develop their professional skills and knowledge throughout their careers.
- Support professional registration, which involves supporting practitioners to meet Social Work England's professional standards, including by providing CPD opportunities, and promoting ethical practice, including by giving social workers the confidence to challenge unethical practice.
- Create strategic partnerships, including having formal partnerships with social work education providers that promote and enable effective joint planning and providing high-quality placements and support for social work students on those placements.
Mixed picture on performance against standards
The latest health check, for 2025, revealed a mixed picture on social workers' views on their employers' performance against the standards.Four standards - wellbeing, CPD, professional registration and strategic partnerships - showed an improvement compared with the 2024 check, though CPD remained the lowest rated of the eight standards as far as social workers were concerned.
There was no change year on year in relation to three standards - effective workforce planning, safe workloads and case allocation and supervision - while one - having a strong and clear social work framework - showed a decline.
Across all eight standards, satisfaction was lower among children’s than adults’ practitioners, with children’s social workers, with the gap being greatest in relation to the standards on safe workloads, wellbeing, supervision and CPD
