Scottish Government

Changing Lives, the report of the 21st Century Social Work Review, set out a compelling and challenging vision for the future direction of social work services in Scotland, delivering three main messages and challenges:

• Social work doesn't have all the answers. So we need to build capacity to deliver personalised services.
• We don't make best use of social work skills. So we need to build the capacity of the workforce.
• Doing more of the same won't work. So we need to build capacity for sustainable change.

Following this, in February 2006, Scottish Minister's accepted the report's 13 recommendations and gave a commitment to act on them.

Five change programmes were subsequently set up as mechanisms to help drive forward the change agenda and deliver a number of key strategic pieces of work. The completion and publication of these core products took place in March 2011. The work of each of the change programmes complemented the others, and they formed part of a single agenda striving to achieve the aspirations laid out in Changing Lives.

The remit of the five change programmes was to

• Identify proposed service delivery and evidence models and inform the content of guidance, frameworks and other relevant resources
• Pilot and evaluate proposed models and reach informed views about what works, where and why
• Be facilitated and supported by The Scottish Government but the work will be led by the experts in social work services, not civil servants
• Ensure an approach that is consistent with the principles of public service reform to achieve ownership and sustainability.

1. Social work Services must be designed and delivered around the needs of people who use services, their carers and communities.
2. Social work services must build individual, family and community capacity to meet their own needs.
3. Social work services must play a full and active part in a public sector wide approach to prevention and earlier intervention.
4. Social work services must become an integral part of a whole public sector approach to supporting vulnerable people and promoting social well-being.
5. Social work services must recognise and effectively manage the mixed economy of care in the delivery of services.
6. Social work services must develop a new organisational approach to managing risk, which ensures the delivery of safe, effective and innovative practice.
7. Employers must make sure that social workers are enabled and supported to practice accountability and exercise their professional autonomy.
8. Social work services must develop a learning culture that commits all individuals and organisations to lifelong learning and development.
9. Social work services should be delivered by effective teams designed to incorporate the appropriate mix of skills and expertise and operating with delegated authority and responsibilities.
10. Social work services must develop enabling leadership and effective management at all levels and across the system.
11. Social work services must be monitored and evaluated on the delivery of improved outcomes for people who use services, their carers and communities.
12. Social work services should develop the capacity and capability for transformational change by focusing on re-designing services and organisational development.
13. The Scottish Executive should consolidate in legislation the new direction of Scottish social work services.