The GSCC would like to congratulate the 44,435 social workers who applied for registration by the cut-off date of 1 December. In addition, we recognise the work put in by their managers, HR staff and senior managers in verifying and endorsing forms, responding to queries from staff and checking that social workers had applied. Thank you for all your efforts.

Many thousands of forms have also been received in December and as more arrive every day, it will take some time to build a full picture of who has applied. The Registration Team is currently focusing on processing the tens of thousands of forms that have been sent in. Once each form entered onto the GSCC’s system, we will send out a letter to each applicant, confirming that they have applied, that their application has reached stage one of the process and giving them an application number.

Social workers should keep this letter safe, as it will demonstrate that they have applied to register. This will be important if their registration certificate does not come through before the law changes. With so many thousands of applications to process, it will take some time for every social worker to receive a letter but every applicant should receive a letter well before the new law comes in. However, during the next few weeks, we won’t be able to respond to enquiries about individual applications, but please do bear with us on this.

We have recently implemented a number of changes aimed at streamlining the applications’ process, which we hope will help make the system more user-friendly and efficient. We’re grateful for your feedback and support for high standards through registration.