First-tier Tribunal (Health Education and Social Care Chamber)

  [2010] UKFTT 4 (HESC)

      Jennifer Cotter

                                                                  -v-

                                             General Social Care Council

                                                        [2009]1628.SW

Before:

Ms Andrea Rivers

Mr David Griffiths

Dr Keith White

                                                             DECISION

1.  This is an appeal against a decision of the Registration Committee of the GSCC, made on 27^th March 2009, and re-affirmed on 18^th June 2009, to refuse the appellant’s application for inclusion on the Social Care Register. On 18^th September 2009 the appellant lodged an appeal against that decision, to this tribunal.

2.  Both parties were content for the matter to be decided without an oral hearing and at a directions hearing on 30^th October 2009 His Honour Judge David Pearl agreed that it was appropriate to decide the matter on the basis of the papers alone. 

 The Law

3.  Applications for inclusion on the Social Care Register are governed by The General Social Care Council (Registration) Rules 2008.

4.  Rule 10 states that:

“The council shall grant an application for registration if –...

          (c) where the Applicant is a social worker, it is satisfied that –...

                      (ii) the Applicant has –

                                                                     (aa) successfully completed a course approved by the

                                                                   Council under s63 of the (Care Standards) Act”

5.     S64 of the Care Standards Act 2000 deal with “Qualifications gained outside a Council’s area”. It states that:

“(1) An applicant for registration...satisfies the requirements of this section if-

            (b) he has, elsewhere than in England, undergone training in social

                 work and...

(i)              that training is recognised by the Council as being to a

standard sufficient for such registration.”

                        Burden and Standard of Proof

6.     The burden of Proof is on the appellant. It is her responsibility to demonstrate that she is suitable for registration. The standard of proof is the civil standard, namely balance of probabilities.

Factual Background

7.     In 2003 the GSCC introduced a new requirement for registration. In future, qualified social workers in the UK were to be educated to degree, rather than diploma standard.

8.     On October 1^st 2008 a similar requirement was imposed in respect of social workers trained abroad, seeking to register with the GSCC for the purpose of working in the UK.

9.     The GSCC notified relevant organisations of the impending change, prior to its implementation. This information was sent to the Philippines Association of Social Workers in July 2008. The notice said that in July 2008 the GSCC would be “improving the information available on our website on a country-by-country basis.”

10.  In September 2008 they issued a document headed “Country Assessment Guidance – The Philippines”. This stated that applicants for registration would require a Bachelor of Science in Social Work issued by a “Centre for Excellence” or a “Prestigious Higher Education Institution”, as well as being licensed as a social worker with the Philippine Board of Social Workers. There was no guidance as to which institutions were considered to fall into one or other of those categories.

11.  In February 2009 the appellant, Mrs Jennifer Cotter, applied to register with the GSCC. Mrs Cotter obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the Universidad de Santa Isabel in the Philippines in March 1990 and has been licensed to practise as a social worker in the Philippines since 1994. She has had many years’ experience working full-time, initially with a street children programme and then at a Women’s Crisis Centre.

12.  In order to ascertain whether or not a degree obtained abroad is considered to have equivalent status to a degree obtained in the UK the GSCC uses the services of the National Recognition and Information Centre for the UK (UK NARIC). UK NARIC advised that there were five universities in the Philippines whose degrees were considered comparable and the Universidad de Santa Isabel was not amongst them.

13.  Accordingly, on 27^th March, the GSCC wrote to Mrs Cotter, rejecting her application. Their letter was accompanied by an Assessment Report explaining that the reason for refusal was that Mrs Cotter’s degree was not from one of the five institutions, as advised by UK NARIC.

14.  Mrs Cotter replied in a letter dated 14^th April. She did not accept their decision and said that she had consulted the website and the guidance there made no mention of the fact that the degree needed to be from one of the five named institutions.  She complained that “the rules have been changed (and) the webpage and country assessment guidance have not been changed”. She felt she had been “misled by the information given on the webpage.” She asked for her application to be reconsidered and gave details of the recognition by various national and international organisations of her university’s status and of her own extensive work experience.

15.  The GSCC wrote to her on 26^th May. They referred once again to their guidance documents, as set out on the website, which, it appears, still made no mention of the five named institutions. They did not respond to Mrs Cotter’s complaint that she had found this misleading.  Confusingly their letter went on to say that since the Universidad de Santa Isabel was only awarded university status in 2001, which was after Mrs Cotter had completed her studies there, it was not, at the time when her degree was awarded, “a prestigious institution or a Centre of Excellence”. In fact the Universidad de Santa Isabel was not, in any event, one of the five named universities, so the question of its change of status was not relevant. The letter also went on to invite Mrs Cotter to “let us have any evidence you have that shows that your qualification was awarded by a Prestigious State University or a Centre of Excellence for social work.”

16.  On 9^th June 2009 Mrs Cotter wrote back, responding to the point raised about the date of her qualification and setting out further details about the recognition of the Universidad de Santa Isabel, presumably in answer to what appeared to be an invitation from the GSCC to provide such information. She attached supporting documentary evidence.

17.  On 22^nd June the GSCC wrote to Mrs Cotter, once again rejecting her application. The letter was accompanied by a Final Assessment Report dated 18^th June, which once again said that the reason for this was that the Universidad de Santa Isabel was not one of the five listed institutions. It went on to deal with Mrs Cotter’s complaints. It did not accept that there had been any lack of information and referred to the notice sent to the Philippines Association of Social Workers which they said had been published on the website in July 2008, and the guidance document of September 2008.

18.  In June 2008 the GSCC issued an updated guidance document for the Philippines. This time it listed the five universities which met the equivalency requirement, as advised by UK NARIC.

19.  In the section marked “Reasons for Appeal” in the application form for her appeal to this tribunal Mrs Cotter gave, as one of her reasons, the fact that a friend of hers who had an identical qualification had been granted registration by the GSCC. However, according to the respondent the friend’s application to register had been made in August 2007, before the new requirement had been introduced.

20.  In response to a direction by this tribunal the respondent provided a letter from UK NARIC, confirming that in their view Mrs Cotter’s academic qualification was equivalent to Higher National Diploma standard. We were also shown email correspondence between the GSCC and UK NARIC, dated January 2009, in which GSCC raises a query about the equivalency of qualifications in the Philippines. UK NARIC refers them to the five institutions which, they say, are listed on their database and which, they state, are the only ones which award recognised degrees.

Findings

21.  Mrs Cotter’s degree from the Universidad de Santa Isabel does not meet the new requirement and we therefore agree with the respondent that she is not eligible for registration. The same would be true for anyone in her position applying for registration after October 1^st 2008. There are no circumstances, or discretionary powers, available to the GSCC which would allow the requirement to be waived.

22.  Nevertheless, we have some sympathy with Mrs Cotter’s sense of injustice. Full and precise information about the status of qualifications obtained in the Philippines was not made available on the GSCC website until June 2009, some eight months after the implementation of the new requirement. Yet according to UK NARIC this information would have been available to the GSCC in or before January 2009 as by that date the five qualifying institutions were already listed on the UK NARIC database. If these details had been published on the website Mrs Cotter, and others in her position, would have known where they stood. As it was Mrs Cotter felt she had been misled. So far as she was concerned she had obtained a degree from a highly reputable body and there was nothing on the website to suggest to her that recognition would be limited to only five institutions.  Furthermore the respondent’s letter of 26^th May was, in our view, confusing and encouraged Mrs Cotter to make further representations which, in the circumstances, were bound to fail, thus increasing her sense of grievance.

23.  In our view it would have been helpful if the GSCC’s replies to Mrs Cotter’s letters had acknowledged their delay in updating their website information, and responded to her concerns in a more positive way. Although she is plainly not eligible for registration it seems, on the basis of the written information provided to us, that she may, through her skills and experience, be able to provide extremely valuable service to the community in this country. Providing information about what she now needs to do to qualify, what sort of courses are available, and how far her previous experience and qualifications can be taken into account in advancing her career, would have been a more constructive approach. Good and experienced social workers are a much-needed resource and Mrs Cotter should be helped and encouraged to do whatever is necessary to resume her career in this country.

24.  Finally we note that the respondent’s submissions indicate that Mrs Cotter made two applications to register, whereas our papers appear to show that she made only one application, followed by two letters asking the GSCC to reconsider their refusal. This is a significant distinction, because Rule 11 of the 2008 Registration Rules provides that following two unsuccessful applications any further applications within a two year period may be refused. It is therefore important to clarify whether the respondent is correct in claiming that this was indeed the case. While we would emphasise that Mrs Cotter remains ineligible for registration at this time, if she does obtain the appropriate qualification within the two year period, it would, in our view, be  most regrettable if she were prevented from re-applying.

Decision

25.  It is clear from the above that Mrs Cotter is not currently eligible to register with the GSCC as a social worker and accordingly this appeal is dismissed.

Appeal Dismissed 

Mrs Andrea Rivers

Mr David Griffiths

Dr Keith White

 5^th January 2010