Cash for care or consumer-directed services are increasing in scope and size in Europe and North America. The English Department of Health initiated a pilot form of personalised support for adults (Individual Budgets) in 13 local authorities that aimed to extend opportunities for users of social...

Individual Budgets are central to the implementation of English government policy goals in social care. Like other consumer-directed or self-directed support programmes operating in parts of the developed world, they are envisaged as a way of increasing individuals' choice and control over...

Social work and social care vacancies in England have partly been filled by international labour migration. Some staff are recruited from their home countries; others are recruited post arrival in the UK. The business of recruitment is often undertaken by commercial employment agencies; however,...

Research has emphasized the importance of practice learning to social work qualifying education but has tended to feature social work educator and student perspectives more strongly than the views of those responsible for assessing students' practice in the field. This article draws on 195...

After many years of debate in the UK about the need for a degree-level qualification in social work, the arguments for a minimum degree-level qualification were accepted. The requirements for the degree in England were developed drawing on work from a number of sources, including a benchmark...

The views of people with experiences of using services and the views of their carers about the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales) are reported in this article. Interviews with ten people about the detail of the Act prior to its implementation revealed that they welcomed the principles...

The ‘nearest relative' and social work roles in mental health services share common ground. Although the social worker is a trained professional and the nearest relative is identified from a fixed hierarchy of kin, both roles were awarded the authority to make a compulsory order for hospital...

This paper draws on the evaluation of the impact of the English National Service Framework for Older People (NSFOP) on the experiences and expectations of older people, four years into its ten-year programme. The NSFOP focuses on achieving cultural changes so that older people and their carers...

There has been no large-scale study looking at the proportion of social work students in the UK who achieve the professional qualification, although there is some evidence that different groups experience different rates of progression. This article examines progression rates among students...