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The Government's proposals for the regulation of social care services are set out in the Social Services White Paper. They include changes to the inspection of services, the abolition of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work and the establishment of a new statutory body, the General Social Care Council (GSCC), to be responsible for regulating conduct and practice standards for all who work in social care. This article describes the background to the proposed general council and its links to training and service regulation, outlines the Government's approach to setting and enforcing standards, and suggests ways in which the general council will affect those who use and work in learning disability services.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the approach taken by the General Social Care Council to developing professional boundaries guidance for social workers.

Areas of tension or difficulty encountered in developing the guidance are highlighted and the reasons for the decisions taken in developing the guidance are discussed.

The process of developing the guidance served to highlight a number of areas of disagreement regarding how the General Social Care Council should act to address the issue of professional boundaries violations amongst social workers. These areas of disagreement, and how they were resolved within the scope of the guidance, are analysed.

The paper provides an insight into the types of issues that a regulator confronts when acting to address behaviour amongst its registrants. The approach the General Social Care Council took to professional boundaries issues amongst social workers – producing an aid to reflection rather than a list of “dos” and “don'ts” – and the process of developing the guidance will provide a useful reference point for other organisations confronting similar issues.

In the first of two articles forming this Overview of progress in user participation in strategic affairs, the author considers the issues to be addressed in enabling users to be fully involved with the work of the General Social Care Council and the Care Standards Commission.

This article addresses contemporary presentations of migrants, particularly women, as dependents and a ‘burden’ on welfare. Focusing mainly on Britain, it shows that, while immigration policies increasingly restrict their access to official welfare, migrants are crucial to the provision of welfare both to their own family and community and in mainstream services, including professional roles as well as in informal employment. Migrants are involved in complex networks of caring relations, often across national boundaries, in which they may provide care to others in order to provide for dependents back home.

This paper considers cash for care as reflected in direct payments and the more recent development of individual budgets in England. While the momentum to roll out individual budgets gathers pace in England, Wales has embarked on a more cautious approach in wishing to evaluate the impact of individual budgets on social services. The paper identifies some of the far reaching implications of cash for care in general and individual budgets in particular, for service users, carers ‐ both paid and informal ‐ and for the social work profession. The policy incoherence in relation to risk and safeguarding is highlighted. This paper supports the approach currently adopted by the Welsh Assembly Government in relation to the ‘rolling out’ of individual budgets. The Assembly's 10‐year strategy for social services focuses on the rights of citizens and the needs of communities. This paper argues that fulfilling that vision should not be wholly contingent upon an unproven extension into the field of individual budgets.

This is the third in a series of articles looking at the provisions of the Care Standards Act. This article will look at the establishment of the General Social Care Council and the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) list.

The Mental Health Act 2007 (HM Government, 2007) replaced the approved social worker (ASW) with the approved mental health professional (AMHP), opening up the role to some nonsocial work professions. AMHP training, however, remains linked to the General Social Care Council (GSCC) post‐qualifying social work framework, with AMHP training now incorporated into the higher specialist social work award, set at masters level (level M) rather than first degree (level H) (General Social Care Council, 2007).Analysis of data from the first year of AMHP training at Bournemouth University illustrates some of the challenges that have arisen particularly in relation to the masters level study. Evaluation of the first year highlights some important areas for future consideration in terms of student selection, pre‐course preparation and student support. The data also demonstrate that there have only been a very small number of non social workers enrolling on programmes at the present time. This article will explore some of the possible reasons behind this.

In the context of current developments in children ' s services in the UK and increased emphasis on workforce development, the authors describe a survey of successful completers of a Post-qualifying (PQ) Child Care Award Programme, one of 18 such programmes in England that ran between 2001 and 2006/7. The survey ' s aims were twofold: first, to gather the respondents ' overall evaluations of their PQ training and information about their past and current work circumstances; and second, to explore their knowledge and opinions on the latest developments in children ' s services in relation to their own work practices. The findings from the survey are outlined under four themes, which are then discussed in relation to other relevant studies, reviews on the role and tasks of social workers and current developments associated with the Every Child Matters agenda and the integrated workforce. Concerns are raised about whether social work professionalism is being effectively utilised within the current children ' s services arrangements.