Is evidence-based practice in social work a good or bad thing? The authors of this book argue that it depends on what ‘evidence-based’ means.

On the one hand, they acknowledge the need and obligation to improve the quality and effectiveness of practice with vulnerable clients, and the role that research evidence can play in assisting with this. They accept that even if social workers might be interested in evidence, their use of it is poor, and maintain that consequently it has had less impact than expected. This is not entirely or even mainly the responsibility of social workers, however; Gray, Plath and Webb decry the poor coordination and naivety of the evidence-based practice movement when it comes to spreading its message and changing practice. Too often, they suggest, the nature and presentation of evidence do not help frontline practitioners confronted with the complex needs of real children and families. They are particularly critical of the movement's failure to supply robust evidence of the impact of evidence-based practice.

On the other hand, the authors contend that the value of evidence-based practice is something that needs to be argued rather than assumed. The traditional hierarchy of evidence, in which randomised controlled trials assume greater importance than qualitative studies, comes under strong attack, as do systematic reviews which, the book suggests, are invariably inconclusive and biased towards narrowly focused interventions. There is a danger with evidence-based practice, it is argued, that the importance of relationships in service delivery is superseded by a kind of technical rationalism, and that professional judgement – the ‘gold standard of evidence’ (p. 170) – loses out when good practice is prescribed too tightly: ‘Decision-making in social work will always entail a complex mix of life experience, professional judgement, heuristics, political expediency and research knowledge’ (p. 170), in part because ‘evidence is never absolute or complete’ (p. 175).

It is certainly true that getting research into policy and practice is not a simple linear process. There is an inherent tension between researchers seeking to generalise from individual cases and practitioners trying to apply generalities to specific situations. Implementation is also a complex business, whether it entails encouraging individual practitioners to keep abreast of and apply research or seeking to embed evidence in the structure and culture of entire service systems. The barriers are multiple, and few who promote evidence-based practice would hold social workers solely responsible for its scarcity. As the authors point out, practitioners often work in organisations that are unsupportive in this respect, and it is unreasonable to expect stretched practitioners with multi-faceted caseloads to keep on top of every issue. Indeed, the salience for evidence-based practice of the organisational, political and professional environment is increasingly acknowledged (e.g. Chaskin and Rosenfeld, Reference Chaskin and Rosenfeld2007).

It is also fair to say, as the authors do, that the unquestioning trust placed in some methods and disregard of others has been unhelpful. While Randomised Control Trial (RCTs) are well placed to detect the impact of interventions, they are not always ethical, practical or appropriate. Further, more qualitative studies are better at explaining why, say, people do or do not use services and what they think of them. But this much is now widely accepted and there is a danger of setting up arguments in order to knock them down as straw men. As the authors acknowledge, an increasing number of studies adopt a mixed methods approach, and there have been innovative attempts to incorporate qualitative data into systematic reviews (e.g. Gould and Richardson, Reference Gould and Richardson2006). Moreover, just because some proponents of the methods hierarchy have unfairly dismissed certain methods, critics should not fall into the same trap. For example, others have addressed the criticisms of RCTs voiced here (e.g. Torgerson and Torgerson, Reference Torgerson and Torgerson2008), yet the discussion in the book on this subject is one-sided.

A recurring theme is the view that evidence-based practice represents a powerful movement striving to formalise and constrain social work practice in advanced capitalist societies obsessed by quality assurance and performance management. This analysis of context is a major strength of the book. Advocates of evidence-based practice can be oblivious to the illiberal and regressive forces that arguably enable their pursuit of a seemingly self-evidently noble cause. Enhanced awareness of these should stimulate a greater focus on actually improving the well-being of service users and sound alarm bells when the emphasis switches to hitting administrative targets or stifling clinical judgement.

The evidence-based practice movement also needs to rise to the challenge, fairly set here, to demonstrate the impact of its efforts. This may not be easy to do but with greater will, more progress would surely have been made. The hypothesis – crudely stated, that the greater use of evidence will improve the quality and effectiveness of practice – is perfectly reasonable (after all, what is the alternative?), but it needs testing.

By the same token, the contention made in the book that professional autonomy is necessarily attenuated by evidence-based practice, and that this is a bad thing, also needs interrogating. It is equally plausible to argue that increased knowledge of research into how problems develop in people's lives and how they might be addressed effectively will help produce better analysis of individual situations and promote superior judgements. This is not to say that other factors are unimportant but rather that judgement and evidence do not necessarily conflict. The authors are not careless enough to suggest that they do, but nuanced messages can become garbled in practice.

The book is an engaging read, in part because it offers a trenchant critique that in places verges on the polemical, but also, by virtue of its analysis of the key proponents of evidence-based practice, it puts faces on the otherwise impersonal. This is sometimes less balanced than it might be: why, for instance, is so much space devoted to a peripheral if well-funded player in the UK and its somewhat maverick leader when arguably more considered and influential intermediary organisations barely receive a mention? But the book deserves to be widely used by academics, practitioners and students in social work and social policy as it is a forthright and stimulating statement on contentious issues that will only be resolved by debate and discussion of this kind.