Introduction

The history of social work in the United Kingdom is a long and complex one, and there are no signs of it getting less complex. If the theory and practice of UK social work is of interest to an international audience, it is not just because of the hegemony of the English language, but also because it has often been at the forefront of changes – for good and ill, perhaps. If there is something to learn from the UK experience, it might be as much from the wrong turns and difficulties of the occupation in that divided realm, as from the advances in thinking and practice. This chapter focuses on the contemporary position of social work in the UK, and on the challenges to what is seen as a managerial-technicist version of social work (Harlow, 2003). If the UK is to be seen as at the forefront of the New Public Management and of managerialist reforms in the 1980s, those in other countries and contexts might seek to avoid some of the problems of an ‘early adopter’. It will be apparent here, however, that the future course of the social work occupation in the UK is by no means fully charted. At best we can point to certain possibilities and to social imaginaries that may prove to be the basis for revised forms of practice, however liminal these are. In this discussion the focus will be the degree of professional autonomy of social workers as an occupational group as a feature of these possibilities. First, we focus on the situation from the 1990s to the present day in which this managerial-technicist version of social work takes root and flourishes. Second, we focus on three alternatives that have emerged in recent years. In doing so, we do not intend to provide an indication of the likely direction of travel for UK social work, nor do we assume that these alternatives are the only ones available; we hope merely to draw attention to possible alternatives that might be worth considering and supporting.

The ‘profession’ of social work in the UK can be regarded as occupying a favourable position, in that social work is a protected title and only those who have undergone graduate-level education in social work, in approved courses, can describe themselves as ‘social workers’.