Maree Allison, Acting SSSC Chief Executive said:
‘Despite the continued challenges we all faced during the year our staff and the social work, social care and children and young people workforce have continued to deliver excellent support for our citizens and communities. They have shown exceptional commitment, hard work and resilience throughout this time.
‘This year marks the end of our previous three-year strategic plan. This was a time of unprecedented change and impact due to the pandemic, yet we continued to deliver success across the period. We completed the registration of people working in care at home and housing support and our Register grew to over 168,000 people. By the end of March 2023, we reduced the number of open fitness to practise cases by over 1,000 and over half the workforce are now qualified. Throughout the life of the strategic plan nearly 20,000 people in the sector achieved their qualification.
‘Our new strategic plan for 2023-26 builds on this progress and sets the direction for the next three years. Real change will remain as we continue to deliver our Future Proofing Programme which will develop and improve registration and regulation. Working with you and our partners in designing our services is key to achieving our vision to make a positive and lasting contribution to improving the quality of Scotland’s care services.
‘We will continue to work hard to provide exceptional value to our registrants and the people of Scotland, and making sure you are confident in the service we deliver.’
Highlights from our 2022-23 Annual Report
- Over 300 people attended our online ‘Continuing the Conversation’ sessions in August 2022. These events focused on key themes that emerged from the consultation on the Register for the Future in 2021/2022.
- We awarded over 5,000 SSSC Open badges and launched the Registration Open Badge to support newly registered workers to understand the role of the SSSC and their responsibilities as a registered worker.
- We received 3,602 fitness to practise concerns in 2022/23 and closed or resolved 4,023 concerns. Of the 143 hearings we held, 131 were online, six were a hybrid of online and in-person meetings and six were in person hearings.
- We launched a new wellbeing line for those going through the fitness to practise process. It provides emotional support with the option of counselling, as well as access to online resources.
- We are working in partnership with Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Government and NHS Education for Scotland to develop a Skills Response Plan for Adult Social Care to ensure the adult social care sector has access to the necessary education and training to deliver a high level of care.
- In 2022/23 we published a range of reports and data sets to support workforce planning. We published the Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2021 Workforce Data which provides a comprehensive picture of the paid workforce employed in social services in Scotland at the end of 2021.