About us
- We register and regulate key groups of social service workers.
- We promote and regulate education and training and raise the standards of practice by social service workers.
- Our work means the people of Scotland can count on social work, social care and children and young people services being provided by a trusted, skilled, confident and valued workforce.
The social service workforce
- There were 211,510 social service workers in Scotland in 2022.
- By March 2023 we had registered more than 168,000 workers.
- Our Register is qualification based and applicants must hold or be working towards a qualification.
- They also have to keep their learning up to date.
- Workers on our Register need to adhere to the SSSC Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers.
- There is also a Code of Practice for Employers.
The SSSC and the Care Inspectorate
Both were set up under the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001.
- The Care Inspectorate regulates and inspects service provision.
- The SSSC regulates and registers the social service workforce and its education and training.
Hearings and decisions
See our hearings and decisions sections for more information on upcoming hearings or decisions. If you would like to attend a hearing find out what you need to know here.
Areas of expertise
We can provide expert opinion on topics such as:
- the role of the social work, social care and children and young people workforce, what they do and who they work with
- the standards that people using social services and carers can and should expect from the people working in social services and why
- professional regulation and what that means in social services in Scotland
- the challenges facing the social service workforce in providing care across social work, early years, care for older people, adults and children
- statistics and data on the make up of social service workforce in Scotland, for example age, gender, service provision across public, private and voluntary sectors
- the challenges facing social service staff in providing compassionate care, love and kindness, a family setting
- careers in social services and the challenges of recruitment and retention
- the work of the sector skills council, Skills for Care and Development (SfCD).
We can also arrange interviews with our:
- Acting Chief Executive, Maree Allison.