In the centre of the diagram lie the knowledge, skills and values that inform and drive practice. These may be profiled and configured in different ways, giving rise to three patterns of thinking and decision-making represented by the points of the triangle.

Rational/Technical Approach - "Doing Things Right"

What are the main features of this approach?

The driving force for practice is... Accurate legal knowledge
The law is seen as... A clear, rational framework for action
Practitioners need... Factual knowledge of powers and duties
The focus is on... Lawful and procedurally correct practice
Skills needed are... Interpreting and applying legal knowledge to situations encountered in practice

Rational/Technical Approach - "Doing Things Right"

At a more complex level

There are different types of technical legal knowledge.

(a) Powers and duties for core interventions to meet need or provide protection

These are the legal mandates for assessment, service provision, protection and detention, where those actions are taken by social workers.

e.g.

  • Assessment of children's needs for support and protection takes place using powers and duties available under the Children Act 1989 and, in relation to disabled children, under the Disabled Person's Act (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986.
  • Assessment of an older person's need for community care services taking place using powers and duties under the NHS and Community Care Act 1990.
  • Assessment of the need for compulsory admission to psychiatric hospital takes place under the Mental Health Act 1983.

(b) Legal rules that promote individual and collective rights and support rights-based practice

These are the Human Rights Act 1998, a range of anti-discrimination legislation, and legal frameworks for empowerment in the relationships between users and providers or gatekeepers of services.

e.g.

  • The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into the UK legal framework, making it unlawful for any public authority to act in a way that is not compatible with rights under the Convention.
  • Anti-discrimination legislation includes:-
    • the Race Relations Act 1976 and Race Relations Amendment Act 2000;
    • the Sex Discrimination Act 1975;
    • the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005; the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2000;
    • the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 and the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003; Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006; EC Directives on race and equal treatment.
  • Legal frameworks that support empowerment include:-
    • young people's rights to advocacy under the Adoption and Children Act 2002;
    • the requirement for partnership with parents in the Children Act 1989 guidance and regulations;
    • access to personal data under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the legal position on confidentiality;
    • representation and complaints procedures under the Children Act 1989 and the NHS and Community Care Act 1990.
(c) Legal principles for decision-making

These are the legal rules of administrative law, which set principles to be observed in making decisions, and offer avenues for review and redress. They essentially act as an accountability mechanism in respect of how social work is practised.

Agencies must share information on which they intend to rely. They must usually share their concerns with those in respect of whom they might take action founded in statute, providing an opportunity for people to answer these concerns. Decisions should be given in writing together with reasons for them so that decision-making can be challenged.

Technical understanding of complaints procedures is essential, together with the place of wider mechanisms such as judicial review and ombudsman powers. Also important are judgements that have clarified liability for the outcome of professional decisions (Barrett v Enfield LBC [1999] 3 All ER 193; W and Another v Essex CC and Another [2000] 2 All ER 237) and provide important guidance to individual practitioners concerned about the legality of their employers' procedures.

Knowledge of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 can offer important protection to practitioners.

Rational/Technical Approach - "Doing Things Right"

At a more complex level

What does this mean for practice?

Social worker Lottie knows that there are duties to protect children, or to meet needs for community care services, and is mindful of these duties whenever she works on a case. She looks for features within individuals' circumstances that might fit the legal map. Does any harm or damage sustained by a child reach a threshold that triggers a duty to act? Do the circumstances in which an older person is living give rise to needs that meet eligibility criteria for community care provision? Her agency provides guidance, such as assessment checklists and decision flow charts, to help her do things right.

She is also mindful of case law on the application of human rights principles to intervention in families, or to the conditions in which older people live. She will observe the requirements of anti-discrimination legislation in her own practice, be aware of how it might apply to other aspects of service users' lives such as housing, education or services.

She will be aware of what legal rights service users have to access personal data or to make complaints, and will know what she must do to ensure that her own and her agency's decision-making is lawful. She will also know what protection the law gives her if she is concerned about poor practice or decision-making.

Moral/Ethical Approach - "Doing Right Things"

What are the main features of this approach?

The driving force for practice is... The search for ethical practice
The law is seen as... One means, alongside others, of achieving ethical professional goals
Practitioners need... A strong sense of professional morality
The focus is on... Determining the right thing to do
Skills needed are... Using ethical principles to balance and negotiate dilemmas of practice

Moral/Ethical Approach - "Doing Right Things"

What does this mean for practice?

Social worker Salina has a good understanding of what is in children's interests, and wants to ensure that she promotes good outcomes for the children with whom she works. She will reach for legal rules when she feels that these will help achieve these goals. She is aware that at times legal interventions are experienced as oppressive by service users, and is keen to ensure that when taking such action she can justify this by reference to professional goals and values.

Moral/Ethical Approach - "Doing Right Things"

At a more complex level

An ethical/moral approach provides social work with a lens through which to view the legal framework and develop a critical perspective upon it. There are two key perspectives that emerge.

(a) Congruence between law and values

There are areas where law and professional values are congruent, supporting each other in the search for professional morality.

e.g.

  • Partnership with service users, endorsed in law through the National Assistance Act 1948 Choice of Accommodation Directions 1992 (LAC(92)27), and in Working Together, the Department of Health's Inter-Agency Framework for Child Protection (1999).
  • Anti-discriminatory practice, promoted through such legal rules as the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (see above) but also in the Children Act 1989 where it requires consideration of race, culture, religion and language, or enables young people of sufficient age and understanding to seek court orders, instruct solicitors directly and refuse assessment.
  • Self-determination, as supported through the no order principle in the Children Act 1989 or the use of direct payments in community care (Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996.
(b) Dissonance between Law and Values

There are areas where law and professional values are not in tune with each other, and where practitioners must reflect on how legal rules may be experienced as oppressive.

e.g.

  • The welfare principle contained in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 is not the overarching consideration when responding to young offenders. Indeed, the legal rules enshrined in such legislation as the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 could be argued to hold individual parents and young people responsible for public problems.
  • Another example comes from the legal rules relating to asylum and immigration where social workers are prohibited from offering support, and may be required to separate children from their parents.
  • The power to make compulsory admissions to psychiatric hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 is an area that practitioners find challenging to their values, particularly in the knowledge that user of mental health services experience hospitalisation as a profoundly damaging experience.

Structural/Rights-Based Approach - "Rights Thinking"

What are the main features of this approach?

The driving force for practice is... Social change through the promotion of human rights and social justice [1]
The law is seen as... A resource to pursue promote and secure rights
Practitioners need... Concern for the social, legal, economic, political and cultural contexts within which individual needs and problems arise
The focus is on... Power - challenging inequality and injustice, securing resources and building strengths and capacity
Skills needed are... Partnership, negotiation, advocacy

[1] International definition of social work from the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers: "The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work."

What does this mean for practice?

Social worker Nasa is keen to ensure that her intervention helps to build bridges for social inclusion and helps people to access to beneficial social resources - income, housing, healthcare, education, safe communities. She will look to law for support in promoting the participation of people in decisions affecting their lives, in challenging oppressive power structures and processes of social exclusion and in securing rights at both individual and collective level.

Structural/Rights-Based Approach - "Rights Thinking"

At a more complex level

There are three ways in which rights-based thinking provides a lens through which the legal rules can be viewed and subjected to critical analysis

(a) Rights promoted by law

Certain rights are promoted by law for example

  • The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights within the domestic legal system.
  • Young people's rights to participation in decision-making under the Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002

(b) Rights curtailed or ignored by law

Certain European Convention rights can be overruled, for example

  • The right to liberty may be curtailed using the Mental Health Act 1983
  • The right to respect for private and family life may be limited by the need to protect children under the Children Act 1989

(c) Rights on which law is silent or weak

The law is silent in relation to certain rights

  • European Convention rights are civil and political rather than social and economic rights
  • The law sets no standard in relation to poverty, income or housing