UK Articles

Bob Holman, the celebrated social activist, retired academic and community social worker, had a letter published in the Glasgow daily newspaper the Herald on Saturday 18th August 2012, with which SWAN whole-heartedly agree and which we are pleased to share.  A friend of SWAN, Bob appeared at the 2011 Social Work Action Network conference 'Building Alliances, Defending Services' held in Birmingham. He spoke under the title 'Big Society? Big Joke!' as part of the plenary session Challenging Cameron's Big Society and fighting welfare cuts. Read More

The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) has been in contact over the last two weeks with the Social Worker of the Year Awards about their association with the multinational security services company, G4S. SWAN has grave concerns about G4S and finds the track record of this company totally incompatible with a commitment to human rights and social justice which are the root of social work. The following statement was drafted by SWAN West Midlands, has been endorsed by the Steering Committee of SWAN as our official position: THE SOCIAL WORKER of the YEAR AWARDS AND G4SThe Social Work Action Network National Steering Committee notes:- The annual Social Worker of the Year Awards were sponsored by G4S in 2011- The complicity of the British-Danish security firm G4S with abuses of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and within the state of Israel in breach of the fourth Geneva Convention namely - its provision of technology for several military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, supply of luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners to several Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, including Qalandia checkpoint near Ramallah, Bethlehem checkpoint, Irtah checkpoint near Tulkarm and provision of full body scanners to the Erez checkpoint in Gaza – all of which violate international law. Read More

Report from SWAN Liverpool – Activists from SWAN and Liverpool Against The Cuts have recently established a campaign pressure group – Does Liverpool Care? to oppose Liverpool City Councils ‘Transformation and Modernisation’ of adult social care services across the city. ... Read More

Black to the Future: Con-Dem’s plan to reintroduce colour-blindness and disable mixed ethnicity children by Sarah-Kate Bennett and Jolyon Jones (2012): SWAN West MidlandsIn the last year alone cuts of £1.86bn were made to Children’s Services across the country [1]. The Con-Dem’s ‘great policy initiative’ for vulnerable children focused on early removal by the state and placement through adoption at minimal cost to the public purse. The adoption conundrum according to David Cameron, is that “people are flying all over the world to adopt babies while the care system at home agonises about placing black children with white families" [2]. This supply and demand analogy is all too characteristic of a government that continues to push for marketised solutions to nuanced and complex circumstances. Read More

The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) condemn the announcement last week of plans by Worcestershire County Council to put new limits on adult social care spending, which would see the rights of disabled people to independent living downplayed in the name of meeting ‘the financial challenge’. If plans are approved, from September all new service users and existing service users (if their needs change) will face a tight limit on funding, meaning that they may have to receive care in residential or nursing care - a new retrogressive precedent.  Read More

Report from Glasgow City Unison on Personalisation in Glasgow conference: Over eighty people, including thirty service users, attended a conference on 10 March to discuss and organise against cuts in services and support to disabled people in Glasgow. The event was organised by the trade union UNISON, the Defend Glasgow Services Campaign, the Social Work Action Network and disability groups in the city. Read More

This week the Delivering Dignity report by the Commission on Dignity in Care for Older People was published. You can read a copy of the report for yourself here.  Read More

This morning (Saturday 18th February), the Social Work Action Network (SWAN) joined the Right to Work Coalition and others to temporarily shut down the Tesco Express store opposite the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. Across the nation today, similar actions are taking place to stop Tesco cashing in on unpaid labour, as part of the government’s Work Programme , which claims to be breaking ‘the cycle of benefit dependency.’ Read More

During this period of severe economic and social hardship, it is imperative that public, and in particular social care services, are maintained and strengthened. The reality is that, be it in adult’s or children’s services, as a society we are facing growing levels of complex care needs. And if we are to respond to this challenge,  above all we need have the highest quality workforce possible. Read More

SWAN activists are amongst those helping to organise a series of events to oppose the acceptance by some trade union leaders of the government's deal on pensions. Read More

The government’s austerity measures and drive to privatise higher education is now impacting on social work education. Read More

Today disability activists and campaigners, including the bloggers Sue Marsh @suey2y and Kaliya Franklin @BendyGirl, published a crucial self-funded report into the Coalition Government's welfare reform programme. The authors studied the submissions to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) consultation and revealed evidence that the consultation did not meet the Government's own Code of Practice. Read More

Today (Friday 16th December 2011) members of Social Work Action Network London joined other groups to protest against the Victorian Christmas being inflicted on hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people this Christmas by Atos – a Paris-based IT company. Read More