From 1970 to 2001, the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) was the statutory authority with responsibility for promoting education and training in social work, recognising courses and awarding qualifications throughout the UK. It was abolished in 2001, to be replaced by the UK-wide Care Councils.

Brian Kerr was a CCETSW adviser who worked closely with the University of Edinburgh for many years during this time. He shared his story in an interview with Viv Cree. Abbreviated notes offers insight into the ever-present debates about how social work education should best be delivered and by whom ....

I had done my social work training at Barnett House, in Oxford between 1970 and 1972; I was awarded one of the first CQSWs (CCETSW's first award). The CQSW was a bringing together of disparate social work awards into one qualification. The seeds of the discomfort between external regulation, practice learning and the place of a vocational award and vocational training at an academic institution with all the overtones that that adds, alongside this suspicion of social science as a serious subject, were all there when I was there then.

When I came to Edinburgh University as a CCETSW adviser some years later in the 1980s, there were times when we (CCETSW staff) were suspicious of the people here, and I suspect they were deeply suspicious of what we were about! The whole business of validation and review of courses was organisationally difficult – it produced a tension that was around – “who do you think you are telling us what we should and shouldn’t teach, never mind asking us what we are teaching, and why we choose to do it.” There was a politeness, they answered the questions on the forms, decisions got made, but then again....

By the late 1980s, the context was the Certificate in Social Service (CSS), the Certification of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW) and the review that led eventually to the Diploma in Social Work and after it, there was great debate and great disappointment about the failure of the three year education. It's so ironic that you talk today about returning to the generic notion of a qualification and training with postgraduate study in particular specialisms, because that debate began then , when the three year qualification was lost – when the government at Westminster refused to fund this. The great CSS/CQSW debate divided employers, social workers workers and academics, and there were all sorts of sub-texts around – the elitism of the universities, especially the long-standing universities – Glasgow and Edinburgh – with CSS generally based in Colleges of Further Education, growing out of in-service courses and the Course in Social Care. So to come here , and suggest that this further education, part-time, in-service training course might have the same status, and present the same sort of challenge and require the same level of accreditation and status as their post-graduate qualification in social work - it was fraught!

The whole issue of validation was, “you can do what you like, but you must follow these rules, otherwise we won’t give your students their CQSW”. So there was no doubt about ownership in that sense. But there was a tension, of course, because the universities felt “we don’t need a bunch of civil servants to come along telling us what to do”. And of course the rules weren’t necessarily compatible, so demanding that universities give half students’ time to be underneath someone else’s unapproved jurisdiction and assessment was uncomfortable.

We had a very good, working alongside, kind of relationship with the Scottish Office at this time. David Colvin was the Chief Social Work Officer. Alexis Jay did it for a while. It was a strong relationship, not without difficulty at times. The two institutions (Scottish Office, based in Edinburgh and CCETSW, based in London) exerted a lot of control – over the number of awards, the amount of time that went into workforce planning each year. David Haxby was the head of CCETSW when I joined, and was so for about 10-12 years. He was very concerned about the dilution of the expertise that was part of the CSS.

Reflecting on whether social work education belongs in the ancient universities or not, Brian concluded : Yes, and the profession also needs to say, “We need this kind of high quality research focus”. My conclusion is "Plus ca change". We are clinging on and these debates are still tough.

Source: Interview with Viv Cree, June 2016.