How we tried to get Interim Board to get back to the table
BASW members and non-members may know that the Association has consistently tried to forge a deal with the Interim Board and indeed has always maintained that some sort of deal with Unison is perfectly reasonable.
However, the terms of a deal struck between Unison and the IB in December 2010 has never been properly disclosed to BASW, despite repeated requests, making it utterly impossible for us to understand the detail of this arrangement and consider any relevant implications of it.
No rational organisation would forge a deal with an organisation unwilling to share vital information in advance of a merger. It would be irresponsible and would demonstrate appalling stewardship of an Association run on behalf of its social worker membership by a Council comprised of directors accountable for its management.
When, on 21 September this year, the Interim Board of the College of Social Work decided to end talks with BASW - discussions aimed at forming a new, united college early next year – BASW took every possible step to see the decision reversed. We wrote to the IB urging it to rethink; we wrote to the ministers responsible for College funding asking them to intervene; we pressed the Social Work Reform Board to take a stand; and we urged employer representatives ADASS and ADCS to use their considerable influence within the IB to review the decision.
Social workers took a stand too, and 500 of you emailed the ministers to press them to act in the best interests of social work and of the taxpayer.
No support was forthcoming and it became clear that a series of financial deals between government and what is, in effect, a quango, as well as between that same quango (the IB) and a trade union, were never going to be subject to the scrutiny we would expect, and certainly not the examination we would have given them had BASW been able to remain involved in negotiations aimed at establishing a College.
Social workers are no closer to getting the College of Social Work across the UK that they deserve, and need, while taxpayers have no guarantees their interests are being properly served in this unedifying saga.
There are those who think BASW has been self-serving, yet nothing could be further from the truth. On 1 November we were prepared to hold an AGM that would see members vote to bring four decades of our Association’s existence to an end, putting all of our assets into a new College of Social Work, in the very best interests of the profession.
We were prepared to make sacrifices to make a College happen but others have not shown that same courage or vision. This is deeply regrettable.