Last year Sir William Utting CB kindly agreed to become the first Patron of the Social Work History Network, prompting the following reflections. (279 words)

Installation as Patron of the Social Work History Network reawakened recollections of my own history in social work. My career as a practitioner lasted little more than a decade but the values of social work underpinned the whole of my half century in various forms of public service.

As a novice probation officer, patrolling the streets of West Hartlepool nearly seventy years ago, I lived and breathed social casework. The names of Charlotte Towle, Father Biestek and Swithun Bowers rang out in every professional discussion. My particular guiding star was Helen Harris Perlman (Casework: A Problem-Solving Process). Together with lessons on how to do the job, I also internalised the humanist values of social casework so that they also became part of the way I wished to live my life outside social work.

My predecessor at the Department of Health and Social Security, Joan Cooper, observed that social work is a moral activity. The scope of social work may be defined by agency function or by statute, but its ethical base nevertheless directs it to the welfare of the client. That certainty enabled social workers in statutory settings to endure the nadir of social work’s reputation in this country, when practitioners were popularly reviled as incompetent and uncaring.

Asked to share identifying information, I have always put social work upfront. This is as it should be. The values of social work became part of my own moral framework and informed every other activity I undertook. I am proud to be a (former) social worker and to have contributed to its transition in this country from an unregulated occupation to an accepted profession.

November 2025

An outline of Sir William Utting’s career is available at Warwick.

News item at the International Federation of Social Workers.

Learn more about the Social Work History Network.