Goodbye GSCC
Main news today is that the GSCC is to be abolished and the regulation of social workers is to fall to the HPC (Health Professions Council). I wonder if there will be a name change to recognise that social workers are not health professionals.. It’s a bit early to digest the possible impact of this. In the wake of the abolition of the GTC (General Teaching Council), I suppose it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. But it was to me. I expect the plan to roll out registration to all social care workers has gone down the pan which is a great shame.
The GSCC haven’t always been the most effective and have had very well-documented problems with the backlog of conduct cases but it will be interesting to see how social care fares as a separate entity when the HPC takes over.
At the moment, I am vaguely indifferent as there have been so many changes and readjustments over the last few years that it just feels like another one. I have a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the HPC so will read a bit more and no doubt have further views which might have more substance to them over the next couple of days!
I can’t help feeling that I wish the government would just give us a little time to bed one idea down before changing everything again but as one of my main criticisms of the GSCC was that it was not run by social workers, I can’t see that in particular getting any better!
Posted on July 26, 2010, in personal, politics, social care, social work, work and tagged abolition of gscc, end of gscc, General Social Care Council, gscc.. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
I don’t profess to know that much about the GSCC, but could this move have anything to do with the moves over the past few years for more joint working? Is there a long term possibility of the NHS taking over some or all functions from LAs? OT was a huge growth area in adult services where I was and is certainly more of a ‘health’ kind of thing, ditto rehab. The boundary between the two has certainly become blurred.
I’m willing to reserve judgement to be honest. I can see your point and it certainly makes sense from the point of adult social work which has been increasingly integrated. It will be interesting to see where children and families social work fits in though – as far as I know there is much less integration with health services..
In Alberta (Canada), even though we have hundreds and hundreds of social workers that are not working in the medical field in any way, shape or form, the legislation that rules the College of Social Workers is the Health Professions Act. It is a provincial thing here, not a federal thing.
The abolition of the GSCC may not necessarily be a bad thing. Social Work, like most of the public sector is hidebound by red tape, and the GSCC is just one component of this. It has been a huge disappointment, ineffective at advocating for the profession while providing yet another disciplinary layer and licensed witchhunt when things go wrong. We have been expected to revel in the pomposity of it all.
As for the closer links back towards Health, this is also likely to be a positive move for social work. One of the worst things to happen to Children’s Social Care in recent decades was moving responsibility to the Department for Education post-Climbie. In Child Protection terms, the DfE’s culture of mediocrity, combined with Ofsted’s obsession with form-filling, statistics and performance indicators, was rather akin to using a dog to catch mice. Baby P was an inevitable outcome
I welcome the abolition of the GSCC since it has been an unequalled disaster with membership fees for this misnamed ‘professional body’ resulting in little if anything for individual social workers, whilst the bullying middle and higher managers – also registered – continue with their unacceptable and dangerous behaviour completely unchallenged.
I only hope that the government has the good sense to create something that will actually benefit the profession, rather than creating a thin and impractical veneer of professionalism; which is unlikely without the input of frontline professionals who are in touch with the isses faced daily.