Giving Power to the Consumer through Local Politics

Abstract

Local politics are central to the accountability of social work. This is most clearly true of social service departments, but it applies equally to non-statutory agencies which receive a significant proportion of their funding from local authorities. Even in the case of the Probation Service, where the local authority connection is not so strong, there are moves to increase the degree of local councillor involvement. In other words, almost everyone who works for a social service agency in Britain is accountable to some degree to local politicians.

The truth is that technology and modern methods of management have been introduced into the actual running of the public services with considerable effect, but the means of ensuring effective accountability have been left untouched (Simey, 1985, p.3).