Introduction

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland comprises four separate nations: England, Scotland (the two ‘kingdoms’, joined by the Act of Union 1703), Wales (a principality since the 14th century) and Northern Ireland (a province since the creation of the Irish Republic). Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate legislatures which have incorporated social work, and, since the Acts of devolution, Wales has attained increasing powers over its own legislature and now has responsibility for the development and regulation of social work. Thus, all four countries of the United Kingdom (UK) have separate systems for social work and social care, which will be referred to as ‘social welfare’. In writing about social work there has been a tendency for the term ‘UK’ to be used until relatively recently, even though it has been, strictly speaking, a term which does not reflect the diversity within it. Latterly it has become more commonplace to refer to the specific country, especially within the social work and social policy literature, as this is a developing field, notably in Scotland (Mooney and Law, 2007) and Wales (Drakeford, 2005). Unless specified, the legislation and policy referred to in this chapter will be English, reflecting the writer's place of residence and work.

A more complex question arises however, when ‘social work’ is defined. In England, and indeed in the UK in general, social work has come to refer to those activities carried out by qualified social workers, now a protected title. This has resulted in a range of other professional and even non-professional activities being seen as something other than ‘social work’. For example, the work undertaken in residential and supported living settings is seen as ‘social care’; work in community settings would be regarded as ‘community work’ or, depending on the service user group, ‘youth work’ or even ‘family support’ if located primarily around family or ‘Sure Start’ centres. It therefore becomes clear that when compared with the international breadth of ‘social work’, English social work (as defined earlier) is relatively narrow. This creates a difficulty, not always acknowledged, for those who write about social work, especially in an international context.

Within the context of this chapter, this difficulty is compounded since many of these ‘local’ distinctions are rather recent.