Community Care Plans and Children's Services Plans: The Renaissance of State Planning in Welfare?

Although the most prominent guiding concepts in the welfare reforms of the Thatcher years were those of quasi‐markets and competition, there were also significant developments in state planning and co‐operation between agencies. The most obvious expression of this relates to the legal obligation to undertake community care planning, and this has now been supplemented by a parallel requirement to plan services for children. This Case Study looks back at the early experiences of community care planning, looks ahead to the issues which will have to be addressed in the new children's services plans, and teases out the messages for transferred learning. It warns that local inter‐agency planning has no qualities of spontaneous growth or self‐perpetuation, and that without safeguards the process is at risk of becoming marginalised.