Tangled Webs? Managing Local Mixed Economies of Care

One central dimension of the restructuring of welfare in the 1990s has been the construction of local mixed economies of care developed around the ‘lead agency’ role of local authority social services departments in the provision of services to families and children and in community care. The implementation of two major pieces of legislation — the 1989 Children Act and the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act — has profound consequences for the organisation and provision of personal social services. Although the two acts do not provide a coherent direction for the organisation of social care, their combined impact has effected a profound reshaping of the provision of care services, affecting the role and internal order of social services departments in particular. The search for greater integration of services — the ‘seamless web’ referred to in the development of community care — has been pursued through legislative frameworks that involve the potential for disintegration as well as integration.