Ray Jones will be best known to many for his writing on child protection and child and family social work. However, his long social work career has also included 14 years as a director of social services and a period serving as the chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence. In 2018 he received the Social Worker of the Year Award for his ‘Outstanding Contribution to Social Work’.
In this book, Jones examines the development of the Personal Social Services in England and Wales over the past 50 years, although comparisons are made with developments in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Given the volume of largely separate legislative and policy developments covering services for children, older adults, people with disabilities and people with mental health needs, a vast amount of ground is covered. Impressively, Jones provides a highly readable and thought-provoking account of major changes, drawing extensively on historical accounts and interviews with over 30 prominent policy actors, including former ministers, senior civil servants, chief inspectors, directors of social services, academics and campaigners. Throughout, the importance of the wider economic and political context to the development of policy is emphasised. But Jones also presents fascinating accounts of the differences made by individuals and campaigning organisations to the direction of policy.
The first section of the book considers the Seebohm report (1968) and the eventual passage of the 1970 Local Authority Social Services Act, arguably the high watermark for the personal social services and the social work profession. The vision was to create integrated cradle-to-grave departments with a strong emphasis on the ‘prevention of social distress’ to move beyond the provision of ‘care and casualty services’ only (p. 60). The new social services departments were to be led by an emboldened ‘generic’ social work profession and were instructed by the then Conservative minister Keith Joseph to plan for annual budget increases of 10 per cent (p. 125). This really was a time to ‘feast’. Of course, the feast ended early, and financial constraint has been a central driver of reform in the subsequent decades of ‘famine’ beginning in the mid-1970s.
The second and third parts of the book, covering the 1970s and 1980s, discuss the development of social services departments and the social work profession in this context. Chapter 8 highlights the influence of ‘contract culture’ and the New Public Management during the 1980s. It was during this period that social workers working with adults started to assume the role of ‘care managers’ forced to ration services as much as respond to care needs (p. 206). Separate policy developments on child protection pulled in another direction.
However, it was the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, discussed at length in Chapter 10, which formalised the purchaser–provider split in adult social care and, alongside the Children Act 1989, effectively cemented the separation of adult and children's social services. The need to control spiralling social security spending, unwittingly caused in part by a decision in the 1970s to allow people to claim for funding to pay for private care, provided the main impetus for these reforms. However, Jones argues that it was never inevitable that local authority social services departments would assume primary responsibility for this huge area of public spending. He highlights the pivotal role played by Sir Roy Griffiths, who had a background in retail, in persuading the Thatcher government that this was the best way to assess local needs and arrange the delivery of care to individuals.
The fourth section of the book includes chapters on the Labour government (1997–2010) and Conservative-led governments since 2010. In the discussions on policy developments in adult social care, financial constraint remains a dominant theme. It is argued that ongoing efforts to integrate health and social care services have invariably been spurred by, or constrained by, cost pressures in the National Health Service. Delayed discharges from hospitals have provided the impetus for reforms under both political parties. Jones also highlights the inherent tension within personalisation schemes between demands for greater choice and control for services users and the need to manage costs by rationing services.
Earlier chapters locate the personalisation agenda in the context of service user studies in the 1970s and campaigning in the 1980s and 1990s by disability rights groups. The strengthening of adult safeguarding procedures in the 2000s are also highlighted. We are reminded that not everything has been about managing costs.
Perhaps one minor limitation of the book is its predominant focus on social work, with limited attention given to other occupational groups working in social care. But given the breadth of policy and legislation covered, and the fascinating insights garnered from the interviewees, this may be a little unfair. Those unfamiliar with the history of the personal social services will find this an excellent and comprehensive introduction. Others more immersed in this history will enjoy the fresh insights and personal reflections.
