ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the introduction of professional registration in the UK. Social work professional identity has historically been weak in the UK because it has not been a registered profession. Social workers claim to professional status has been ambiguous because as bureau-professionals, social work has been subject to government definition of its roles. The professional status of social work has been ambiguous. Social work has been described as a semi-profession or a bureau-profession because it consolidated its identity with the expansion of the bureaucracies of the welfare state. The chapter discusses the professional status of social work and presented the views of managers and practitioners as to whether social work is a profession in the UK. Care management has decreased the human' intangible elements and indeterminacy' and discretion inherent in a traditional case role. It has increased the mechanistic technicality, that is, the tangible, identifiable elements of social work practice.
