Social Work (Hansard, 19 March 1999)

§ Mr. Dewar

The White Paper "Aiming for Excellence: Modernising Social Work Services in Scotland" is published today. It contains the answers to three key questions—What kind of social work services do we want? How can they be delivered? How will we know if they are being delivered effectively? It sets out proposals to strengthen the protection of children and vulnerable adults, to support a confident and competent workforce and to ensure high quality services which meet people's needs.

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We propose to create a Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care as the independent regulatory of social work services, whoever provides them. The Commission will register all organisations that provide care gainst agreed criteria and will make regular independent inspections to see that they are met. It will regulate residential care homes and nursing homes, making it easier for homes to offer both forms of care. It will introduce for the first time regulation of care services provided in people's own homes and will also cover all relevant children's services.

We propose that the workforce should be regulated by a Scottish Social Services Council which will have the duty of registering specified groups of staff who have completed approved courses of training as a pre-condition for registration. The Council will also regulate professional and vocational education and will publish codes of conduct and practice. Social work services make a critical contribution to social inclusion, providing crucial support to people at times of personal or family crises. The White Paper also underlines the critical importance for successful services of close and effective partnership working between agencies.

If enacted by the Scottish Parliament, the proposals in this White Paper will strengthen public confidence, creating modern social work services on which we can all rely.

Copies of Command Paper No. CM4288 are available in the Library of both Houses.