Introduction

Social work, as many writers have noted, is a profession in crisis (Clarke, 1996; Jones, 1998; Jones and Novak, 1999; Asquith et al, 2005). As a work activity, it has been increasingly dominated by managerialism, by the fragmentation of services, by financial restrictions and lack of resources, by increased bureaucracy and workloads, and by the increased use of the private sector. While these trends have long been present in state social work, they now dominate the day-to-day work of frontline social workers and shape the welfare services that are offered to service users. As Harris (2003) has so eloquently argued, social work has become more business like – shaped by the priorities of neoliberal welfarism that increasingly dominate the British welfare system.

But as well as impacting on the work tasks of social workers, the depth of the neoliberal assault has started to pose questions about the very nature of social work as an activity. Social work is a career that most people enter because they believe that it will offer them the opportunity to work with and/or help the very poorest and most marginalised people in society. Many practitioners see themselves as workers who have been educated and trained to act ‘professionally’, to adhere to a set of values that involves them building relationships with service users and carrying out a range of techniques and practices aimed at improving the lives of those they work with. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) defines social work as an activity that

The scale of the neoliberal attack in Britain poses serious questions about the ability of social workers to practise in ways that match the IFSW definition of social work activity that challenge the very existence of the social work profession.