The new workforce regulator is launching a recruitment campaign which will see over 70 posts recruited over coming months at all levels and disciplines, including registration and conduct, policy, communications, human resources, information technology, finance, and administration.

Chair of the GSCC, Rodney Brooke, said: “This is an exciting opportunity for talented people to join our enterprise and share with us the historic task of building this new organisation. We’ve achieved an enormous amount with our current staff in forming the organisation. It has always been planned that we would move to a larger staff in order to deliver our statutory duty of registering a workforce of 1.2 million, regulating conduct and playing our part in reforming social work education.

“It took 25 years of campaigning for the GSCC to come into being – and now we’re here, we’re determined to make a difference to the social care sector and the millions of people who rely on those services. We’re looking for the people who will help us to achieve that and build a new level of trust and respect for social care.”

The recruitment drive is part of the planned expansion of the new workforce and education regulator, which came into being in October 2001, and is intended to enable it to achieve its target of opening the Social Care Register next year.

Staff will be based at either the GSCC’s flagship offices in London Bridge, or at its offices in Rugby.

The GSCC will be actively seeking disabled candidates and people from different backgrounds. Recruitment materials will be available in a variety of formats including Braille, large print, and audio cassette, and on the website at www.gscc.org.uk. The main offices at Hay’s Galleria, London Bridge, are designed to be fully accessible to disabled people.

As the first ever workforce regulator for the social care sector, the GSCC has been given the enormous task of registering and regulating a workforce estimated at 1.2 million in England. Social care workers and employers will be required to adhere to codes of practice. The aim of registration is to help raise standards in social care and prevent unsuitable people from working in the sector. Registration can be suspended or withdrawn in cases of misconduct.

Since it came into being, the GSCC has consulted on and agreed codes of practice for social care workers and employers, in consultation with its equivalent bodies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The four councils published these on 23 September 2002. Consultation on rules for registration and conduct finished on 9 September 2002; and the GSCC will also soon begin to consult on registration fees. Other work has included working with the Department of Health to prepare for a new degree in social work, which will replace the current two-year diploma from 2003. A website was launched in May and is being developed following consultation with users.

Posts will be advertised from 25 September and details will be available on this website from then.