SASW writes to Scotland's new First Minister

This week, SASW wrote an open letter to Humza Yousaf following his appointment as Scotland's new First Minister, which you can read below. In the coming weeks, we also intend to write to the newly appointment Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers whose portolios' have relevance to Social Work. You can find out who these individuals are, here. We will keep you informed on any correspondence or meetings we set up. 

Dear Humza Yousaf,

On behalf of SASW’s members across Scotland, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election as First Minister, an office both of the greatest honour and responsibility.

We wrote to you earlier this month when you became a candidate for the Leader of the SNP. Thank you for your response. In that letter, we highlighted the concerns that Social Workers have in relation to their workload and the pressures that they face. These issues remain worrying:

• One in four social workers leave within the first 6 years of practice.
• 82% have experienced significant stress because of work.
• Overall stress scores for social workers in Scotland are much higher than the UK average.
• 50% described their current caseload as “not at all manageable”.
• Lack of effective supervision and access to ongoing training.

Scotland now has a crisis of recruitment and retention in social work and social care with increasing demand affecting assessment times and the availability of care and support for our citizens. SASW recognises that this crisis extends across the caring professions in our public services, including nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.

During your campaign, it was clear that we should expect some pause in the timetable for the National Care Service legislation. Whatever the timeline for any revised model for the commissioning and delivery of social work, social care and community health, work on fair pay, ethical commissioning and clarity on the human rights of people in care homes must continue at pace.

Within the policy memo for the National Care Service Bill, there is a proposal for a National Social Work Agency (NSWA). We believe that such a body is necessary to plan and support the workforce, deliver additional pathways into the profession and career options within it and support national implementation and improved consistency. We, therefore, would welcome a commitment to delivering the National Social Work Agency. 

You are well known as a campaigner against racism. SASW published a report in 2021 on the experiences of social workers from minoritized backgrounds in their training and in their employed work. What we found was shocking and deeply unsettling. We formed an anti-racism advisory group to challenge and support us and this group produced a roundtable event for World Social Work Day last week. Again, we heard how daily discrimination reduces people’s quality of life and wastes talent. Scotland needs to take immediate steps to eradicate hate, discrimination, disinformation and the macro and micro aggressions experienced by so many of our citizens. We ask you to use your influence and your ability to set the tone, direction and clear action for both government and society.

SASW asks you to support social workers and their colleagues across public sector caring professions. We ask you to prioritise addressing the recruitment and retention challenges and support all initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion. Without enough social workers, Scotland will not be able to implement the radical reforms to social services that we need. Without a sustained and sustainable workforce, Scotland cannot achieve the ambitions of The Promise or meaningfully embed human rights in our public services.

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you, to take forward these issues and develop solutions that carry the confidence of our members.

Yours,
Alison Bavidge
National Director
Scottish Association for Social Work