Points to Ponder - Where next with Verity

Local by default, national by agreement

National Care Service ambitions

The Scottish Government’s plans for a National Care Service were driven in great part, by concerns from people who need services about the inconsistency of local approaches to, and delivery of, support and the risk to agreed support plans people face if they want to move across local authority boundaries. These issues drove the thinking on the National Care Service Bill’s care boards at local and national levels.  Delivering a system that might take the best of local flexibility whilst creating national principles and confirming citizen rights and expectations was always going to be a complicated ask.  Whilst the politicians appeared to focus on greater consistency for social care, without improved consistency in social work decision-making and resource allocation, social care cannot become more consistently available or accessible to people who need it.

Professional support structures

Currently social work as a profession in Scotland has no national support framework.  We work using a composite of legislation and national guidance (statutory and not).  Beyond that, our functions, role, and learning and development is prescribed by our employers – 32 local authorities and a range of independent organisations.  How professional is a profession whose direct employers dictate the models, practices and resources it uses?

Verity House and the Joint Partnership Statement

When the NCS Bill was published, CoSLA, representing Scottish local authorities, set some strong red lines around transfer of staff and assets and the future relationship between local and national government.  They withdrew their engagement from the National Care Service Programme until these were resolved. 

This summer, the Scottish Government and CoSLA signed the Verity House agreement.  There are many admirable principles: developing simple structures for assurance and accountability, early consultation and collaboration, the role of Community Planning Partnerships in delivering prevention and early support.  Ring fenced budgets will go (unless there is a clear rationale) and three key common priorities are identified, poverty, a net-zero economy and sustainable public services.

There are other statements that have implications that feel less clear at this point:

  • “The powers held by local authorities shall normally be full and exclusive. They may not be undermined or limited by another, central or regional, authority except as provided for by the law.”
  • “In keeping with the Charter, both parties agree the maxim “local by default, national by agreement”. 

The Partnership Statement on the National Care Service in July proposed joint accountability between local and national governments but there are no details about what that looks like yet.

National Social Work Agency

Since the National Care Service consultation in 2021, there has been general agreement across the social work profession that a more cohesive, national approach to workforce planning, post-qualifying learning and development, social work leadership, improvement and implementation support is necessary both for the benefit of citizens and if the National Care Service ideals are to come to any sort of fruition.  So, the proposals for a National Social Work Agency (NSWA) came about and much is happening across the five workstreams in that programme.  The NSWA proposal is not in the Bill. This makes it vulnerable to Ministerial whim, easy to get rid of. “Local by default, national by agreement” raises questions about how the NSWA will engage with the local authorities and the level of impact that will be allowed.

The National Social Work Agency is intended (currently) to be an agency situated within government.  There are calls for it to be set up externally as an non-departmental government body, at arm’s length from Ministers, perhaps like Public Health Scotland. The tests for where it resides must include:

  • It must be able to fight for social work and social care resource at the highest national level where budget decisions are being made.
  • It absolutely must have its own authority to speak truth to power, disagree with Government and be heard.

It is difficult to see how these two elements might align in the real world.  Which will make for better public services?  Might there be ways to strike a balance?  Are there other places or organisations where a strong and effective independent voice might reside, professional associations, perhaps?

  • It must have the authority to develop national professional standards and the teeth to stand up to social work employers.
  • It must raise social work’s profile across Scottish Government departments so that the resource required to implement policy is built in across all the departments whose policy impacts social work.
  • It must hold the space between Government and social work employers with independence, credibility and autonomy.
  • It must be able to successfully connect Ministerial decision-making to both local social worker leadership (the Chief Social Work Officers) and the front line.

Points to ponder

  1. Are these the right criteria for deciding the model of NSWA?
  2. What model of a NSWA might meet these tests?
  3. Can an NSWA be effective for Scottish social work under the “local by default, national by agreement” principle?
  4. Should the NSWA and its duties and powers be included on the face of the Bill – this might then mitigate “not be undermined or limited …except as provided for by the law.”
  5. Will local authorities perceive the NSWA as a support or a hindrance to local working practices? How will that affect social work and social workers?
  6. Are there other opportunities to move to a more consistent approach to social work for Scotland? What models might local authorities experience as useful which would also promote nationally understood, more consistent delivery and protect the role and values of the social work profession?

Please send any thoughts and comments to george.hannah@basw.co.uk

Alison Bavidge August 2023