Dame Annie Hudson to lead Social Work England review

Social workers keep children and adults safe, often quietly and under pressure. This month, the Department for Education has launched the first independent review of Social Work England, the national regulator. Dame Annie Hudson will lead the work, which starts in November 2025 and is due to conclude by spring 2026.

Social Work England, established in 2019, is the specialist regulator for social workers in England. According to the Department for Education, the review will test how well the regulator protects the public, upholds professional standards and sustains confidence in the profession across the country.

Dame Annie Hudson brings long experience to the task. She is a social worker by background, a former Director of Children’s Services in Lambeth and Bristol, and served as Chair of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel from December 2020 to June 2025. She is also Deputy Chair of Oxfam GB. The DfE says the review will listen to social workers, employers, educators and people with lived experience.

There is a clear legal hook. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires a review within this timeframe, making this the first examination of Social Work England’s performance since it was set up. The aim is to check whether current arrangements are effective, fair and ready for the future.

What will be examined is straightforward to describe and important in practice. The review will look at Social Work England’s statutory objectives, its governance and accountability, and how it collaborates with other social care bodies. It will also assess how the Secretary of State’s powers on social work are being delivered under the 2017 Act, with recommendations to follow.

You can help shape those recommendations. Engagement runs through autumn and winter 2025, with a final report expected by spring 2026. If you want to contribute, use the government’s Call for Evidence on GOV.UK. Strong submissions set out what works, where processes feel slow or unclear, how standards affect everyday decisions, and what would improve supervision and continuing professional development (CPD).

What this means for you as a student, early‑career practitioner or educator is simple: keep notes from placements or practice that show how standards support safe decisions; record when regulation clearly improved outcomes; and include service‑user perspectives. This review is about public protection as well as professional support, so real‑world examples carry weight.

Routes into the profession are part of the wider picture. The Department for Education funds Step Up to Social Work and Approach Social Work, intensive programmes that allow high‑performing graduates and career changers to gain a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Work, register with Social Work England and practise. The DfE reports these routes train around 850 new social workers each year, with about 7,000 people trained to date and more than eight in ten local authorities involved.

The workforce picture shows growth alongside pressure. DfE statistics state that on 30 September 2024 there were 34,300 full‑time equivalent child and family social workers employed by local authorities in England. That is up 3.7 percent on 2023 and 20.5 percent higher than in 2017, the highest since this data series began, with vacancies decreasing but not evenly across the country.

Ministers have underlined the vital role social workers play, and Dame Annie has said she wants to hear from the profession and from people with lived experience. As you read the terms of reference, practise media literacy: separate regulation from government policy, ask what evidence supports each claim, and check how proposals might affect workload, supervision and learning. If you work in or study social care, add your voice via the Call for Evidence on GOV.UK and look out for the final report in spring 2026.