SASW Response on the Future of Secure Care in Scotland
SASW's response draws on extensive frontline practice experience, direct engagement with social workers who make difficult placement decisions daily, and our commitment to children’s rights and The Promise.
The current system is characterised by financial instability that threatens sustainability for providers, recurring placements of children in inappropriate settings or far from home, inequitable access, and a failure to meet children’s complex needs. Incremental reforms over decades have not resolved these problems. Transformative change is essential.
Our response is structured around core principles: children’s rights must be central to all reforms, not optional or aspirational; frontline expertise must inform system design through genuine co-production; implementation must be resourced and monitored as rigorously as policy development; resources must match rhetoric, with the Scottish Government being transparent about costs and committed to long-term funding; and collaboration requires enabling structures, not merely exhortations to work together.
Wales is pioneering the removal of profit from children's social care, aiming to transition to a not-for-profit model for children’s homes, fostering services, and also secure care by April 2030. This initiative ensures that public funding is reinvested into children's wellbeing rather than being extracted as profit. SASW would like to see the not-for-profit model adopted in Scotland.
Download and read our full response below.
