The Consortium is a partnership between educational institutions and social work employers in the voluntary and public sectors. It was established in 1989 to facilitate collaborative provision of social work education across the training continuum, from pre-professional social care to post-qualifying social work training.
It developed primarily out of the requirement for professional social work training to be based on partnerships between educational institutions and social work employers. From the very beginning however, it was also concerned with social care training (e.g. SVQ's and HNC's) as well as the development of a UK-wide post-qualifying framework for social workers.
Three similar consortia or partnerships also emerged around
the same time in the North of Scotland, the Tayforth area and South-East Scotland.