Social Work England is to review the fees it charges practitioners under its new strategy, covering 2023-26.
Social workers have been charged £90 a year for registration, and its renewal, since 2015, firstly under the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), and then Social Work England since 2019. The regulator said it was, consequently, reasonable to review levels, in a consultation paper on the new strategy, published last week.
The review would not necessarily lead to an increase, and Social Work England said it would involve engagement with the profession, followed by a full public consultation, and that the regulator would take into account public spending pressures, inflation and recruitment and retention issues in its decision making.
However, the British Association of Social Workers England urged a freeze in fees, particularly in the context of the "extreme financial hardship" facing some practitioners.
Social Work England's annual registration fee is higher than those levied on social workers by the other UK regulators though it is lower than those charged by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for nurses and midwives, and the HCPC for occupational therapists, psychologists, speech and language therapists and the other professions it regulates (see box).
Annual registration fees
Social Work England: £90Scottish Social Services Council: £80
Social Care Wales: £80
Northern Ireland Social Care Council: £65
Health and Care Professions Council: £98.12 (plus one -off scrutiny fee £68.68, though newly qualified staff pay 50% fee in first year)
Nursing and Midwifery Council: £120
Practitioners trained outside the UK face additional fees. Social Work England charges international applicants a one-off £495 scrutiny fee to join the register.
Fees make up just under half of Social Work England's annual income, bringing in £9.6m in 2021-22, up from £9.1m in 2020-21 and just below the £11.2m grant it received from the Department for Education (DfE), itself a rise from £9.8m the year before.
In the consultation paper, Social Work England said it had agreed a baseline level of funding with the DfE, though this would remain under review in the light of policy and spending priorities, as was normal practice.
Spending shift away from fitness to practise
It said its proposals in the strategy were deliverable within its current financial framework and that, overall, its headcount and annual expenditure were lower than comparable regulators.
So far, much of its expenditure has been directed at fitness to practise, in the light of the huge pressures created by the backlog of cases inherited from the HCPC, disruption to the process during Covid and high levels of referrals since it took over social work regulation in December 2019.
