Regional Devolution and the Personal Social Services

Abstract

The personal social services in Britain are in the main a compound of local authority action and central government suasion. Thus, unlike the services most closely related to them (the income support agencies and — outside Scotland — the probation service), they revolve around the axis which links two kinds of democratic body; the citizen is concerned both as taxpayer and ratepayer; and the quality of the services is determined by the interaction of initiatives taken centrally and locally. The case for regional devolution, in any one of its manifestations, rests upon the assertion that the initiatives taken are not enough — or that the bodies responsible for taking the initiatives are malfunctioning and need to be replaced.