Julia Ross, BASW Chair, reflects on the BASW Council meeting held in May

This May Council meeting was packed with new developments. The most significant of these was the full inclusion for the first time of our elected Experts by Experience, Omar Mohamed and Reshma Patel. They were warmly welcomed as were the announcement that Mark Lynes and Angela Frazer-Wicks will shortly be joining the ranks . Our congratulations to them all. They asked that thanks were given to the previous Chair Gerry Nosowska and Vice Chair Lewis Roberts who have both put so much effort into making this happen.

My Chair’s report covered a considerable amount of ongoing activity both in BASW, covering all 4 nations and indeed other agencies and bodies, as I strive to engage nationally and internationally with other professional bodies and agencies, including governments.  I was pleased to make progress on my four key objectives as Chair.

Growing our membership will now be promoted through the development and roll out our new CRM (Customer Relations Management ) system which we plan to up and running by February 2024. Meanwhile the new website should be up and running by autumn this year. This is great news and much appreciation to Amanda and her team for all their expert and hard work on this.

The poverty campaigning is going well with several Podcasts and Blogs and a great launch at the House of Commons in March. Working with others is growing as we forge ever new relationships with other professional bodies.

I joined the Compass recruitment event with the Joint BASW/SWU Stand and took the opportunity of doing the rounds of all the local authority stands to talk to Councils about their plans and their interest in BASW. I also attended the three-day Spring Seminar for the Association of Directors of Social Services in April, meeting many old colleagues and making new friends, including time listening to the progress being made by PSWs in adult social services. I also heard all about the new Time to Act Road Map which outlines a 10-year plan for adult social care.

My induction into BASW and our many rich and varied member led activities continues to amaze and delight me. I spent time enjoying meeting with the Independents both in London and nationally and was heartened to hear how our membership of Independents is growing. I was also struck by their more positive health and wellbeing at work experience captured in our annual social work survey.

We are making substantial progress on our new governance arrangements including a better understanding of our Balanced Scorecard (which captures are top, most meaningful performance measures) and have added a new Risk and Audit Committee to our structure. I chaired our first full Four Nations Chairs’ meeting and was heartened to hear how much synergy and collaboration takes place, with some particular gaps, not least due to the continuing lack of government in Northern Ireland.

I was also delighted to join Andy McClenaghan’s Podcast Social work and the media and am much looking forward to the forthcoming awards for Journalism in Social Work after the conference on 13th June. These are initiatives which I firmly believe will enhance the public’s understanding of social work .

Council spent some time on the preparation for the AGM, taking place after the Annual Conference in June and, as such, a number of the items did not receive the full attention I was hoping to be able to give. I promised in the meeting to cover a particular one, in more detail in my Blog. This was the Nomination and Recognition Committee Report which had a detailed agenda covering the appointment of Hilary Tompsett as the new Chair, Review of Terms and of Reference, Recognition Awards for June Thoburn and David Jones for their lifetime achievements in social work. It was also agreed to consider further BASW’s holding position for nominations to the Kings Honorary Awards. There will be a further report on this. Finally, time was spent on consideration of uplifting the Committee Chairs, Honorary Officers, Council Members payments for attendance and finally to experts by experience and carers payments in line with the percentage agreed for staff previously, from October this year with no backdating.

The Finance and Organisational Development Committee has started to consider our budget for 2023/24 and also provided scrutiny of our progress against our Balanced Score Card, our management accounts for this year, the Risk Register, and Risk and Audit Committee development update.

As I have said before, Council spent a considerable amount of time ratifying the motions before us and considering the AGM agenda and plan.

It was a real pleasure to receive the plans and ratify a new Branch for North Yorkshire, and to merge the South West Region branches in one newly ratified group.

Finally, the Equality Diversity and Inclusion terms of reference were reviewed and the Annual Survey of members was addressed again. This survey is a wonderful way of engaging with our members and I hope more and more will respond as time goes on.  Your views and wishes from the association inform all we do.