Introduction

The personal social services are probably the least understood of the major areas of social provision reviewed in this book. Everyone has some idea, even if not wholly accurate and somewhat vague, of the functions of education, health, housing and social security services, but what the personal social services do, and who provides them, are far from clear. Baldock sums up the position:

This lack of prominence is confirmed by the figures in Table 4.1 which compares public expenditure in selected public services: the personal social services are at the bottom of the list by a very considerable margin.

Given the restricted size of their resources, it might be tempting to dismiss the personal social services as an unimportant area of public policy. However, a quite different conclusion results from a consideration of the services they provide and their significance in the lives of vulnerable groups in the population.

The personal social services consist of social care (as distinct from healthcare) provided by local authority social services departments and a variety of related agencies for:

• • children and families

• • older people

• • people with physical disabilities

• • people with learning disabilities

• • people with mental illness.

Services may be provided to individuals, groups or whole communities. They may be delivered in clients’ own homes, in residential establishments or in daycare facilities. The settings, the perceived needs of particular client groups and the types of workers involved are closely interrelated, but the distinguishing characteristic of the tasks carried out by social services departments is their diversity. For example, social work is usually thought to be the key activity of the personal social services, but social work itself is ill-defined and may take many forms. Also, the great majority of the people employed by social services departments (86%) are not professionally qualified social workers. They are made up of administrative and clerical staff, workers in residential homes and in day centres, and those employed as homecare workers or in the meals-on-wheels service.