Professional Indemnity Insurance - Cafcass

The request was partially successful.

Dear Health and Care Professions Council,

Professional Indemnity Insurance covers people for instances of bad practice or negligence like those shown in the following examples:

- Professional negligence - such as making a mistake in a piece of work for a service user or giving them poor advice
- Unintentional breach of confidentiality - such as sharing sensitive service user or case information without permission
- Defamation and libel - such as making false comments about a service user that damages their reputation
- Loss of service user or case documents or data

Cafcass have confirmed today in response to a FOI request that they do not provide Professional Indemnity Insurance for any of their employees (and especially FCAs who were the employees specifically identified in the FOI request).

1. Please would you confirm how many social workers currently registered with you have said that their employer covers or provides them with Professional Indemnity Insurance.

2. Please would you confirm how many self-employed or agency social workers currently registered with you have said that they provide their own Professional Indemnity Insurance.

3. Please would you confirm how many employed social workers currently registered with you have said that they provide their own Professional Indemnity Insurance.

4. Please would you confirm how many employed social workers currently registered with you have said that their union registration provides them with Professional Indemnity Insurance.

5. Please would you confirm how many social workers currently registered with you have you asked to provide evidence of Professional Indemnity Insurance in line with your Professional Indemnity Insurance requirements for registration shown on your website.

If you are able to provide a breakdown of how many of these have also registered their employer (or if self-employed or agency; their end-client) as Cafcass I would appreciate it but it is not essential.

Yours faithfully,

H. Grants

FOI, Health and Care Professions Council

Dear H. Grants

 

Thank you for your email dated 5 October 2017, in which you ask for
information in relation to social workers (in England) professional
indemnity insurance.

 

We are treating this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act
2000 (FOIA).

 

We will deal with your request as promptly as possible and, at the latest,
within 20 working days as required by the FOIA. If you have any queries
about your request please do contact us using this email address, or the
address below.

The reference number for your request is FR05328.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Maxine Pryce

Information Governance Officer

 

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House, 184 Kennington Park Road

London SE11 4BU

[1]www.hcpc-uk.org

 

To sign up to our e-newsletter, please email [2][email address]

 

Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

Correspondence is welcome in English or Welsh / Gallwch ohebu yn Gymraeg
neu Saesneg.

 

 

 

FOI, Health and Care Professions Council

1 Attachment

Our Ref. FR05328

 

 

Dear H. Grants

 

Thank you for your email dated 5 October 2017, in which you ask for
information in relation to social workers (in England) professional
indemnity insurance.

 

Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA).

 

Social workers (in England) are not required to have a professional
indemnity arrangement in place as a condition of registration with the
HCPC, according to the Health Care and Associated Professions (Indemnity
Arrangements) Order 2014.

 

Please see the professional indemnity frequently asked questions on our
website at [1]http://www.hcpc-uk.org/registrants/indem..., set out below
for ease of reference:

I am a registered with the HCPC as a social worker. Why won’t the
requirement apply to me?

The legal requirement to have in place a professional indemnity
arrangement as a condition of registration does not apply to social
workers in England (or social workers registered with their respective
regulators in other parts of the UK).

This is because this requirement has been introduced by the UK Government
to implement European legislation which applies to all the other
professions registered by us but does not extend to social workers.

 

Due to this we are unable to answer questions 1-5.

 

You also ask for a breakdown of how many social workers have also
registered their employer as Cafcass. We are unable to run a report to
extract this information from our electronic Registration database. In
order to extract the information you have requested, we would need to
examine the registration records of each registered social worker (in
England) and this would exceed the cost limit under Section 12 of the
FOIA, that being £450.

 

Staff time can be charged at £25 per hour for employee time, this equates
to 18 hours before the limit is met. We estimate to access each
registration record and extract the information would take 2 minutes per
record. There are currently 94,510 registered social workers (in England).
94,510 multiplied by 2 minutes equates to 3,150 hours, therefore exceeding
the cost limit.

 

 

Internal review

 

If you are unhappy with the way your request for information has been
handled, you can request a review by writing to:

 

Secretariat Department

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House

184 Kennington Park Road

London

SE11 4BU

 

Email: [2][email address]

 

If you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint,
you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

 

The Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK0 5AF

 

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45 Website: [3]www.ico.org.uk

 

There is no charge for making an appeal.

 

Yours sincerely

Maxine Pryce

Information Governance Officer

 

Health and Care Professions Council

Park House, 184 Kennington Park Road

London SE11 4BU

[4]www.hcpc-uk.org

 

To sign up to our e-newsletter, please email [5][email address]

 

Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

Correspondence is welcome in English or Welsh / Gallwch ohebu yn Gymraeg
neu Saesneg.