Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, 10 Sep 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Official Report 281KB pdf

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Social Work

The next agenda item is consideration of an approach paper on social work, which the clerks have prepared and issued. It contains a draft programme. What are members' views on the paper?

The paper is focused and serves the committee well.

I have five years' experience of the training section in Glasgow's social work department. It has been proposed that Universities Scotland should come in to consider qualifications issues: the majority of social care staff have qualified through their workplace rather than through the local university, so we should get someone to talk about that. The Scottish vocational qualifications centre in Glasgow is a good example in that context, but I am sure that there are others throughout the country who would give evidence.

One of the issues that I wanted to consider was how far down the line we have gone with the regulation of care and the requirement of staff to register with the Scottish Social Services Council five or six years after legislation was passed. I want to find out whether the needs of staff have been addressed in respect of their being able to register and aiming to be competent practitioners in their roles.

I wonder whether we could broaden the number of folk from whom we want to take evidence. I have had some constituency casework on adolescent care in particular; perhaps other members have had the same. Is there any room for hearing from someone with a specialism in that?

That is a valid point. However, the point of the approach paper is to offer a general overview. Then, if we think that there is a particular area within social work that we would like to consider, we will be able to do the more focused work. The suggestion that we might want to concentrate on adolescents might be perfectly valid, but we should take some general evidence first, then we might reach the conclusion that it is an area in which we might want to do further and more detailed scrutiny. You are right to suggest that just hearing from the witnesses, even if we tweak who we see, means that we could not possibly cover all the issues in great depth or detail.

I appreciate that we are just trying to take an overview at the moment and that we will pick up on particular aspects. Aileen Campbell is right to say that adolescent care is one issue that comes back to us constantly. If we do not get a response from the suggested witnesses at this stage, we might want to come back to the issue. I support what Aileen Campbell said; many of us have been approached about the subject.

The "Changing Lives" report was very much about general concerns about social work and how the profession was developing. Staffing issues and how we address them were also a major concern, and certain procedures were put in place around, for example, fast-tracking in particular. I expect that to come up in general evidence, but we might want to return to it if we do not get evidence about how we are recruiting and retaining staff within social work.

Can I ask a daft lassie question? I think I am allowed to today.

Who on the list might be able to give us a perspective on the interface between social work and the voluntary sector?

It would probably be Who Cares? Scotland, but that might be an issue if it was just from its specific viewpoint of working with children. That might be an area that is lacking in our approach; maybe we need to consider a specific witness who could talk to us about the voluntary sector and the role that it plays in delivery of social work services.

So it was not such a daft lassie question.

It was not a daft lassie question at all. It was very perceptive and well spotted.

We have the consideration of the legislation on, and the review of, the children's hearings system. Some of the evidence that we are seeking might run alongside that nicely. Some of the issues around services to adolescents are not so much about social work as the health care services to which they have access. There is a bit of an overlap with a few issues, and it is quite timely.

With those comments being taken into account, are committee members content to go ahead with the approach as outlined?

Members indicated agreement.

I now close the public part of the meeting.

Meeting continued in private until 12:35.