Criminal records and public sector professional education: The role of criminal background checks in admissions to social work courses in England

Entry to social work courses in England

In England, there are multiple routes into social work with all programmes being validated by the professional regulator, Social Work England, whose responsibility is to accredit courses, set guidance and uphold standards (SWE, 2020). Application to undergraduate courses is initially managed through a central Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) with postgraduate routes managing applications directly to accredited providers. Most recent data shows 4140 students enrolled onto social work courses in 2018/19 – down 12% on the previous year, with a 21% decline in postgraduate enrolments alone as social worker vacancies increase (Skills for Care, 2021). Much stock is placed in ‘social worker’ being a legally protected title, with professional credibility considered central to public trust (Higher Education Committee [HEC], 2014). The decision to enrol students onto social work courses sits at institutional provider level in line with admissions guidance set out by the regulator where the tension between representativeness and protection rests (Madoc-Jones et al., 2007; Nelson and Cowburn, 2010; Scott and Zeiger, 2000).

Entry onto social work education programs can be seen as the first ‘gate’ to entering the profession. Admissions processes become the focus of regulatory attention, attempting to ‘screen-out’ unsuitable candidates and, by virtue, ‘screen-in’ those suitable. As previously explained, in England, enhanced criminal record checks are a regulatory requirement for social work course admissions, post-qualifying registration and employment. Enhanced checks provide all criminal records irrespective of the passage of time or seriousness. While protecting service users from potential harm and promoting the integrity of the profession are undoubtedly justifiable gatekeeping functions, we argue that current use of criminal record checks meets neither function effectively.

Instead, criminal record checks as they are currently employed establish a blunt standard of ‘suitability’, which is at odds with Standard 6.2 of the 2012 IFSW Global Standards that ‘student recruitment, admissions, and retention policies … reflect the demographic profile of the locality that the institution is based in’ (IFSW 2012, standard 6.2). Valuing diversity as a professional strength has been acknowledged across other areas of widening participation practice such as disability (Fuller et al., 2004), but discussion in relation to social work students with criminal records seems taboo by comparison, and frequently generates discussion about personal responsibility, morality, and risk. For example, in developing this paper, we have benefitted from feedback from the profession via conference presentations. While the topic has attracted interest, we have been asked several times about whether we believe applicants with sexual convictions should be admitted. There was a sense that in opening the discussion, we were advocating opening a gate and risking negative public perceptions.

The root of discussions we have had so far, as authors in the course of researching this area, is questioning discomfort: what does having a criminal record represent? Is that representation something which a person can always move on from? If not all criminal records can be moved on from, is there a line to be drawn and if so where and by whom? If we are to begin with the belief that not everyone should be a social worker, as one person told us, then what does this say about the profession and whose role is it to decide who should or should not become a social worker? Does society set higher expectations on social work students to be wholly representative of the communities with whom they work and, if so, what underpins the decision-making process for those entering social work education? Does the profession intentionally set out a ‘trip-wire’ as a morality test for those coming into social work – a performative test of mettle?

The inclusive ideals of social work education

The relevance of the discussion around access to higher education for people with criminal records clearly goes beyond the field of social work education. However, this discussion gains particular importance in relation to social work education and training given the very nature of social work, which according to its global definition is an empowerment- and social change-oriented profession guided by ethical principles including social justice, human rights and respect for diversity (IFSW and IASSW, 2014).

The global agreement on the inclusive nature of social work is further underpinned in the field of social work education by the ‘Global Standards for Social Work Education’ (Ioakimidis and Sookraj, 2021), which offer numerous grounds for promoting access to social work education for candidate students with criminal records. To comply with the global standards, schools of social work should, among other actions, take positive steps to ensure ‘the inclusion of minority groups [of students] that are underrepresented and/or underserved’ (p.171), and that students are ‘provided with equal opportunities to learn and develop regardless of [different] forms of diversity (p. 173)’. The document encourages schools of social work to aspire to uphold ‘the principles of restorative rather than retributive justice’ (p. 172) and requires these to challenge ‘discriminatory behaviours, policies and structures’ (p. 173). Acknowledging the global constraints posed to social work education by common issues such as the advance of neoliberal globalisation and the imposition of political interests conflicting with social justice aims, the global standards require social work curricula:

To provide students with the ‘broader knowledge that is required in order to critically understand the politics, socio-legal, cultural and historical forces that have shaped social work’ (p.166);

Historical trends of government control over British social work education

The global neoliberal turn in higher education (Durazzi, 2021) has taken place in a complex and peculiar interaction with the history of the British government's regulation of the social work profession, including its education and training systems. We believe it fundamental to consider this to reach a fuller understanding of the nature and extent of the current constraints to the autonomy of social work education programmes in England with regards to student admissions.

Social work was initially embraced by the British government as an ally profession in the mid-1940s to address social needs linked to the Second World War post-war period and the development of the British Welfare state (Doel, 2012). Since then, Sims (2003: 62) argues, social work education in England has been ‘characterised by a gradual but steady centralizing [governmental] control over educational content and delivery’ as a critical feature. The 1970s saw the beginning of a trend of central Government led reforms of social work training with the establishment of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) in 1971. A characteristic of this trend of reforms, started in a social climate marked by the influences of radical struggles of the time (such as feminism, trade unionism, civil rights), is that it has arguably been characterized by subsequent governments’ attempts to gain a conservative ideological control of the profession and protect this from evolving ‘radical’ influences.

Jones (2011) explains how the increasing demand for a more critical social work education in the 1970s posed a significant challenge, overwhelming many of the programmes and educators who were not prepared for this. The tensions reached the CCETSW, whose response was to seek to control and fend off radical influences. From that time on, Jones (2011:42) claims that it is ‘evident in every change that has been made to professional social work education since, the academic and intellectual content of the courses has been constrained and diluted in favour of content that emphasised the priorities of the agencies’ to produce ‘doers and not thinkers’. It is his conclusion that the fact ‘that we now have highly state regulated social work education in Britain is not simply a reflection of state power or neoliberalism, but of a complicit senior social work academy which all too often was the implementer of reactionary change’ (Jones, 2011: 42).

Public management, marketisation and fragmentation of social work education

From the 1980s neoliberal boom onwards, government-controlled standards setting was justified through discourses which portrayed social work as a failing profession. Moreover, increasing marketisation and a drive to fragment social work's professional field have characterized the government-led social work education reforms in the UK, if more strongly in England.

Social work and social work education have been presented as in continuous need of reform under both Conservative and New Labour (1997–2010) governments and this has been in parallel to ongoing attacks on the profession by sensationalist media, particularly linked to child protection failure scandals (Bamford, 2015; Ferguson, 2008). Contrary to the case of social work education in most countries, international influences have been limited. These have been explicitly dismissed, for example, by the advisor to the Conservative British Government Sir Martin Narey, whose social work education review report claimed that the IFSW's definition of social work is ‘thoroughly inadequate’ for child protection social work and there is a need for another definition ‘that concentrates on that work, generally carried out in the statutory sector, which is about protecting children’ (Narey, 2014: 13). This report expressed concern about social work training focusing too much on theoretical concepts such as non-oppressive practice and partnership with service users (p. 12) and argued for higher academic requirements and stricter recruitment procedures to be introduced and audited at universities. It also strongly recommended the promotion of “fast-track” specialised social work training programmes based on workplace training with a reduced academic component.

Since 2010, a series of this kind of “fast-track” social work training programmes for working in a particular area of social work (children, adults, mental health) have been introduced in England in the spirit of market accountability and elitist workforce recruitment. Frontline, a programme of this type introduced in 2014 aims to recruit the highest achieving graduates to train as children's social workers. At its launch, it unapologetically targeted ‘the best and brightest graduates’ from the country's most prestigious universities (MacAlister, 2014). The language of the Frontline organisation communications has since then changed slightly, and their targeted applicants are currently referred to in a consistent way as ‘great people’ with specific ‘competencies’ capable of raising the status of the profession. An example statement from the Frontline website is rather telling: ‘It's important that we challenge the negative perceptions that are often portrayed in the media and raise the status of the profession to encourage great people to join social work’ (Frontline, 2021). From these programmes and their advocates, it is argued that the strict selection criteria will help ensure that social workers qualified through these routes will excel in their future social work practice (MacAlister, 2014).

Fast track social work training programmes can thus be seen as a culmination of long-established tendencies towards government control (increasing in the shape of public management), marketisation and the fragmentation of social work education which saw social work disassociate from probation training in England in the late 1990s. Nonetheless, these tendencies also pervade the contemporary approach to social work training and student recruitment of the whole range of social work programme providers, including universities and higher education institutions in England.

In relation to the global growth patterns of marketisation of higher education (notably in the European Higher Education Area), Durazzi (2021) has highlighted how, under neoliberalism, higher education policy breaks long standing social pacts by shifting the focus from the promotion of higher education as a public good to the concept of short-term employability. An investment in the interests of employers is prioritised over investing in developing students’ (and future workforce) critical thinking about their own needs and those of the larger society (Durazzi, 2021). In marketised contexts, Lundgren-Resenterra and Kahn (2020: 216) note, HEIs need to ‘sell’ their courses through ‘mission objectives’ that affect students’ choices in terms of education prospects, prioritise complying with temporary demands of the labour market in relation to enrolment and retention numbers and develop training programmes around skills and attributes to pursue profit-making and competitiveness. As they do so they lose control over the curricula and power against employers and professional regulatory bodies whilst becoming instrumental in fostering a customer rather than a pedagogical culture which marks the relationships established between students and their educators. Regarding social work education in England, it needs to be noted however, that a main stakeholder of employability agendas is the government itself, which is provided with a ready workforce for statutory social work, shaped along neoliberal lines (Bamford, 2015).

Professionalism encroaching on governance

The scrutiny of criminal records in social work admissions decision-making has its history in the origins of criminal records and their growing symbolism in society. We argue that for social work education, criminal record checks represent an occupational basis of risk assessment where in being applied to its own - social workers - is understood differently in terms of social justice to one that is not only required but wholly justified in scope to maintain that only “suitable” social workers practice and no “unsuitable” people make it into the profession (irrespective of this being directly contrary to social work commitment to emancipation, social justice, and human rights).

There are alternative views and influences in the current context of social work education in England, such as Croisdale-Appleby’s (2014) parallel review of social work education which contrasts highly with Narey’s (2014), which need to be acknowledged. There is also a history of minoritarian but rich and influential critical and radical social work currents in the UK. Very importantly, there have not ceased to exist pockets of resistance to government control of the profession as well as internationalization efforts within social work education. Nevertheless, we have sought to bring to the fore in this article some of the root causes linked to the highly constrained autonomy of social work education courses in England. Given this situation, there is on the one hand a long way to pave domestically for social work courses to regain influence, criticality, and lost autonomy that would allow for greater control over student recruitment processes and the possibility for making these more inclusive. On the other hand, looking out at the international context and seeking legitimacy from the profession’s global commitment to human rights, social justice and diversity values, as established in the global standards for social work education (2021) may allow for envisaging alternative approaches to social work where criminal records are approached in a radically different way.

The last two decades have seen significant growth in digitalisation to the point where ‘knowing’ has become synonymous with a brief Google. Valuing knowledge has reinforced assumptions that those professions responsible for the care and support of the vulnerable in society operate following an exact science of risk assessment. In the last five years, it has been acknowledged that criminal records should not be a barrier to study. This understanding has so far not been applied to professional education in areas such as social work. While the principle remains, applicants intend to study, studying is then married with a concern for gatekeeping the profession and broader public safety and confidence concerns. While when registration was first introduced student social workers were required to register, it was later argued that students ought to remain under the oversight of universities. There is a blurring of responsibility and expectations where university admissions decision-making is guided by a constructed notion of “good character” and “suitability” to study without guidance on what that means in relation to criminal records. For example, it might be considered reasonable to exclude applicants with convictions relating to harm to children or vulnerable adults from studying social work, but in the absence of clear guidance we risk convictions being measured based on applicants’ ability to contextualise their conviction. This, we argue, risks disparate practice in which explanation or personalised professional identity (Goodson, 2013). In relying on applicants to contextualise or explain their criminal records, admissions rely on subjective assessment of subjective explanation leaving potential for misplaced acceptance or avoidance of risk, the so-called false promise of risk assessments (Goodson, 2013; Green, 2020).

Next steps

To better understand next steps, it has been important to reflect on where we are now in social work education. As a profession with public authority, social workers with criminal records cut across desistance and redemption public discourse. The very idea of social workers breaking the law, no matter how long ago or to what severity, is enshrined in law by programmes and employers having the right to know through the enhanced criminal records check systems. Irrespective of risk, the right to know has become so commonplace in social work that the laws protecting a person's right to move on are diluted in becoming conflated with what has become a common-sense right to ask.

For many, concern about being asked may deter application to enter the profession. A brief review of university webpages show social work is not openly welcoming of students with criminal records despite many signing up to the Fair Chance pledge, a guide to universities on fairer admissions processes for students with criminal records (Unlock, 2019). While growing research of admissions processes is valuable, we argue that it is vital for a specific focus to be given to public sector professional courses, like social work.

The pressure on the profession is significant with government calls for reviews into social work being matched across public sector professional educations, most notably teaching. At a time when social work education is being tested by calls for the increasing contracting out to attract only the “brightest and the best”, there is a sense of a developing parallel social work education system favouring in fact less widening participation to the point where diversity is characterised as left behind (Hanley, 2022).

Drawing on social work in England as a case study, we have identified how the current use of criminal record checks is linked with the broader neoliberal forces of public management and marketisation which have increasingly shaped the provision of social work education in England. Specifically, we have described how criminal record checks have become embedded within a narrow, regulatorily defined and managed vision of suitability potentially at odds with the foundational ethos of our profession.

The use and function of criminal record checks by providers of social work education is also, we have argued, emblematic of the perceived value and role of social work education itself, and the extent of regulatory and/or governmental involvement in its provision. While we have identified the exclusion of people with criminal records as an issue relevant to the profession globally, with reference to the international definition of social work (IFSW and IASSW, 2014) and the global standards for social work education (Ioakimidis and Sookraj, 2021) it is important to recognise that this is an area most significantly shaped by local legislative and regulatory contexts of social work practice.

In an immediate sense, this area for resistance and reform might be within regulatory bodies and universities, however, there is also scope for social work advocacy to the criminal record check system itself. Finally, while we have drawn on our own context as social work educators, the forces giving rise to this situation, whether political, cultural, or regulatory, are applicable to varying degrees across various professions and spheres of citizenship.