Scottish Social Services Council

• to protect those who use services
• to raise standards of practice
• to strengthen and support the professionalism of the workforce

• to set up registers of key groups of social service staff
• to publish Codes of Practice for social service workers and employers
• to regulate the training and education of the workforce
• to promote education and training
• to undertake the function of Skills for Care and Development.

The Register of Social Service Workers opened on 1 April 2003, with social workers being the first group of workers to register. In 2014 there are now 60,000 workers on the register.[1]

The following social service workers will already be or will have to be registered with the SSSC in the future:

• social workers
• students on the social work honours degree and postgraduate programmes
• Care Commission officers
• all workers in residential child care services (this includes managers, supervisors and workers)
• managers of care home services for adults
• managers of adult day care services
• all workers in day care of children services
• all workers in school care accommodation services
• all other workers in care home services for adults
• all workers in housing support services
• managers of care at home services.

The Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers is a list of statements that describe the standards of professional conduct and practice required of social service workers as they go about their daily work. The revised Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers and Employers came into effect on 1 November 2016. The Codes set out the standards of practice and behaviour expected of social service workers and their employers.

The main changes in the updated codes reflect the SSSC move from a misconduct model to a fitness to practice model of regulation, and the inclusion of a duty of candour.[2]

• Social care in Scotland

• Official website