Governance

This page explains the governance structure for The College. Use the links below to go to the relevant section.

How the college structure will work 

Background 

Transition Board 

Transitional Professional Assembly 

Faculties and chairs 

How the college structure will work

Two bodies are responsible for overseeing The College of Social Work: the Transition Board and the Transitional Professional Assembly. 

The Transition Board is responsible for the governance of The College itself, whereas the Transitional Professional Assembly is responsible for The College’s stance on the profession of social work.

Both bodies are part of the initial set-up phase of The College and we will have a fully elected Board and Professional Assembly by early 2013. They will be supported by three College Faculties and a Policy Development Group. 

The Children’s, Adults’ and Mental Health Faculties will focus on galvanising social workers throughout the country to involve themselves in the work of The College. They will bring together the wisdom and expertise of social workers to develop their professional specialisms, discuss and resolve problems, produce guidance, and influence changes in law, policy and practice.

Within each of the Faculties will be up to five Communities of Interest. These virtual communities will be chaired forums in which social workers can raise questions for discussion and develop answers. Transitional Chairs will initially be appointed to the Faculties and Communities of Interest, following an open recruitment process, but ultimately all posts will be elected by the College membership.

The Policy Development Group (PDG) works up the policy positions of The College, both in terms of our response to government policy and in terms of policies which we have developed in the interests of social work and believe should be implemented by government and/or other organisations. 

A PDG Chair and Faculty Chairs have been appointed to take forward this important work in the transitional phase, but ultimately all posts will be elected. Faculty Chairs will automatically be members of the PDG.

All Chairs sit on the Transitional Professional Assembly, which is accountable to the Transition Board for the positions that The College takes on the whole range of social work policy and practice.

Background

In the summer of 2011 the Interim Board received a paper on the development of Communities of Interest, and agreed that work could begin on developing such communities.

In the autumn, the Interim Board received a paper on transitional arrangements to establish The College of Social work as a legal entity and accepted the need to move on from the then Interim Board arrangements to a structure of College Governance on one side, the Transition Board, and Professional Leadership on the other, the Transitional Professional Assembly.

As part of this move, Interim Board Members were asked to decide whether to join the Transition Board, or the Transitional Professional Assembly.

It was agreed that the following Interim Board members would join the Transitional Professional Assembly:

• Professor Corinne May-Chahal, Interim Board Co-Chair and Chair of the TPA
• Andy O’Beirne
• Alison Tasker

In addition, the following prospective members have been invited to join the Transitional Professional Assembly:

• Professor Richard Barker, Chair of the Policy Development Group
• Steve Chamberlain, Chair AMHP Community

Eventually a further 15 to 20 people need to be appointed to roles within the Transitional Professional Assembly.

It is proposed that people appointed to these roles should evidence their ability or desire to develop Communities of Interest in their areas of specialism, or to support the development of these Communities as Faculty Chairs.

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Transition board

A Transition Board was launched by The College of Social Work in October 2011 to provide corporate governance for The College.

The Transition Board is responsible for:

• Determining policy and strategy
• Appointing and overseeing the Chief Executive
• Setting and monitoring procedures for assessing and managing risk
• Monitoring performance.

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Transitional professional assembly 

Working alongside the Transition Board is a Transitional Professional Assembly whose role is to lead on and provide continuity for the professional development and leadership of the profession.

The work of the Transitional Professional Assembly is critical to the success of The College in being a strong and authoritative voice for the profession and continuously improving practice so that it meets the needs of the public. 

The role of the Transitional Professional Assembly is to:

• agree the interim strategic direction for the professional decision making and leadership development of The College, recommending the membership and development of the elected Professional Assembly, and the process for electing Chairs of Faculties and Communities of Interest to the Board
• review the policies of The College as developed by the Policy Development Group (PDG) and make recommendations to the Transition Board accordingly
• consider the development of strategies for the effective dissemination of the policies ensuring they influence key stakeholders
• review and make recommendations on the development of the code of ethics of The College
• Develop key criteria for the development of the social work research strategy and task this to the Education and Development Community of The College
• review progress on Reform Board products

The diagram below details how the structure will work in practice. Each of the three faculties (mental health, children and adults) will have up to five ‘Communities of Interest’, and each Community ultimately elects their own chair. The Communities represented here have been nominated by the Approved Mental Health Professional Leads group.

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Structure of the Transitional Professional Assembly

Faculties and chairs

The chairs of each Community of Interest, along with the Transitional Faculty Chairs comprise the faculty board, and also join and become a member of the Transitional Professional Assembly.

The Communities span across the faculties, such as the Education and Development Community and the NQSW Community, and where these exist, each contributes a representative to each faculty.

The Transitional Faculty Chairs are voluntary roles for a twelve month period, to allow each faculty to arrange for elections to the role of Faculty Chair.

The chair of each faculty has particular responsibility for providing effective strategic leadership for their given specialist area and on matters such as:

• Formulating the faculty’s strategy
• Supporting the development of Communities of Interest within their faculty, including by being part of the recruitment process for transitional community chairs
• Promoting efficient and effective use of Community of Interest Chairs, staff and other resources and running faculty meetings

Additionally, representatives from user and carer organisations will also be invited to be part of the Assembly.

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