The care and support White Paper, Caring for our future, says: "Social workers have a crucial role to play in the reformed care and support system". The College of Social Work agrees, but believes that in a climate of austerity social work must be able to show not just that it makes a unique contribution to the lives of service users but that it makes financial sense too.
This discussion paper indicates where social workers fit into modern models of care and sketches the outlines of an argument that the cost-benefit analysis comes out in their favour.