information for practice

Social care makes a substantial positive difference to people’s lives. It helps people retain or regain their independence and dignity. It helps them overcome difficult situations or transitions in their lives, giving them more choice and control, and rebuilding fractured relationships. It safeguards individual children and adults from harm, helps individuals who are more likely to harm others, and protects society from potential harm. Social care is vitally important to the estimated 2 million individuals (adults and children) who receive social care services in England. The social care workforce has been undergoing transformational change in recent years with a range of reforms and significant investment. The Care Standards Act 2000 put in place key structures to improve the quality of social care services. This included establishing the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), the General Social Care Council (GSCC), a Training Organisation for Personal Social Services (Topss) (now superseded Skills for Care (SfC) and the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC)), and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).