(Re)constructing witness vulnerability in the regulation of social work and social care professionals in the UK: Catalysing change

17th April 2025

As part of the wider NIHR funded ‘witness to harm’ project, our sub-study focused on the work of the four statutory regulators of social work and social care professionals in the UK, namely: Social Work England (‘SWE’), the Scottish Social Services Council (‘SSSC’), Social Care Wales (‘SCW’) and the Northern Ireland Social Care Council (‘NISCC’). When there is a concern about the behaviour of a professional these regulators may rely on witnesses providing evidence at a public Fitness to Practise (FtP) hearing – including service users, their families, wider publics, and (most commonly) colleagues. Each of the regulators address, in different legal and policy texts, whether a witness should be considered as vulnerable and/or steps that may be taken to enable them to give evidence, known as ‘special measures’. In our article we considered how witness vulnerability and entitlement to special measures are constructed in these texts, as well as wider debates about how vulnerability is understood in social work, social welfare and regulatory contexts.  We found that the regulators’ textual provisions can sometimes be too broad (when diverse groups of people are labelled as vulnerable) or too narrow (when texts overly focus on the attributes of individual witnesses) and do not pay enough attention to how situational factors may make people vulnerable, including the process of giving evidence.  We called for a holistic textual approach to how witness vulnerability is framed in policy and law to better support witnesses.

There have been promising signs that our recommendations have had some purchase in the regulatory domain, as indicated by some filmed initial responses to the project, gathered during a dissemination event in London, in February 2024. We also closely followed the General Medical Council’s consultation on their new rules in relation to the regulation of Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates and have been pleased to see that (at Rule 43) these take a more contextual approach to witness vulnerability, which is in line with the findings of our research.

Between December 2024 and January 2025 we met with representatives from each of the four UK statutory regulators of social work and social care professionals. Our aim was to understand how our research had been received, any plans for change, and, if so, how we could support this change, as well as to provide an update on subsequent developments as highlighted above.  Our report, (Re)constructing witness vulnerability in the regulation of social work and social care professionals in the UK: Catalysing change, provides the detail of these discussions.  This report indicates that a wide range of work is underway at each of the regulators with the aim of improving the experiences of those who take part in FtP hearings, including those who have raised concerns. Innovations around witness support include embedding trauma-informed practice, improving the informational and emotional support available to witnesses, and extensive regulator staff training. In relation to witness vulnerability more specifically the following points emerged:

• Particularly for some of the regulators working within older legislation, our research on witness vulnerability brought to the fore a legal scheme that had not been updated for some time and has become out of step with more up to date practices at the regulators.
• All of the regulators undertake rolling reviews of their governing legislation and policies. The availability of independent, peer-reviewed research is one way to support regulators to take a pro-active approach to reviewing areas that might otherwise not be prioritised.
• Two of the four regulators (SSSC and NISCC) have concrete plans to take steps to review their legislative provisions in relation to vulnerable witnesses in 2025.  SCW is currently considering specific recommendations from the research, and how these might impact on its work, including around witness vulnerability.  SWE have recently revised their policy on ‘Supporting Vulnerable Witnesses’ but is open to reviewing its approach further over time if it was felt that it was appropriate to do so.
• All of the regulators were clear that legislative change (if required) was just a starting point – this would need to be supported by appropriate policies and training.

Our discussions also identified pathways to impact which are relevant both to this and to future NIHR funded projects, in that:

• There is a disparity between slower academic timelines for the peer-reviewed publication of research (which can be around a year or more) and faster policy timelines.  This underlines the need to co-produce and disseminate research during the lifetime of a funded project, but also the value of funding advanced dissemination activities, that help to embed research after a project formally ends and therefore leads to lasting change.  This can also help to highlight subsequent developments in an area after the end of a funded project, as discussed in this report.
• Ways in which those conducting academic research can help to support legislative and policy change may include: providing evidence to underpin the need for reform; involvement in training for staff and those who sit on FtP panels; providing input on policies that support legislative change; facilitating opportunities for regulators to interact and share best practice around specific issues; working with regulators (and other stakeholders, such as the professions, employers  and service users) to identify new areas of research.

Going forward we look forward to continuing to contribute to a growing body of research on the regulation of health and social care professionals that aims to support impactful changes in practice.