Archive for July 2024

On Wednesday 17th July, King Charles opened the UK Parliament and delivered his speech outlining the government’s legislative plans for the year ahead. While BASW is concerned with legislation that affects social work practice and issues that affect people social workers work with, there will be other pieces of proposed legislation that are worth noting.

Dr. Ruth Alison Clemens, a lecturer in modern English literature whose work has been published by Taylor & Francis and Routledge, claimed authors hadn’t been contacted about the AI deal.

Bristol City Council lost track of £1.8m petty cash transactions by staff last year… Social workers issued payments of up to £500 without anyone checking what they were for, investigators concluded.

It means the experience of those in care must be considered as part of equality impact assessments – a tool used by councils to assess how different people will be affected by its decisions. Characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010 also include age, race, disability and sexual orientation – but so far it does not include people who have been raised in care.

After the government proposed changes to a body responsible for registering the city’s social workers, there was little open discussion about the overhaul within the social work sphere. The silence was a sign of Hong Kong’s times, but uncharacteristic of the historically outspoken sector.

Despite overwhelming evidence of the wide-ranging risks of COVID-19, a great deal of messaging suggests that it is no longer a threat to the public. Although there is no empirical evidence to back this up, this misinformation has permeated the public narrative. The data, however, tells a different story. COVID-19 infections continue to outnumber flu cases and lead to more hospitalization and death than the flu. COVID-19 also leads to more serious long-term health problems. Trivializing COVID-19 as an inconsequential cold or equating it with the flu does not align with reality.