Practice Governance Framework for Social Work Services

The Changing Lives report recommended that "services develop a new organisational approach to managing risk, which ensures the delivery of safe, effective and innovative practice". The Practice Governance Framework for Social Work Services will seek to describe the appropriate balance between two complementary perspectives:

• The responsibility of the employer to create a structure that supports the practitioner to deliver effective and accountable practice;
• The expectation that the practitioner will exercise their personal professional responsibilities in response to the needs of service users, in accordance with the relevant codes of practice.

The Framework is currently under development and is likely to be published in April/May 2009.