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This paper aims to communicate the challenges and tensions faced by front‐line workers in negotiating the demands of performance targets and those of the young people they work with.

An in‐depth study, over a two‐year period, of a number of training programmes combining participant observation and qualitative directed data collection.

Workers need to be sensitive to young people's previous educational experiences and social context while encouraging participation in education‐based work. Personal problems had to be addressed if progress towards the target of education, employment or training was to be achieved. Effective programmes rely on the front‐line workers but systems of accountability do not recognise the breadth of this work in handling the wider personal situations of young people. The role of training programmes needs to be better understood within this wider socio‐economic context.

The study is of a small number of training programmes so it is not possible to generalise from the findings. A limitation of the paper is that the ethical, moral and practical implications of the study are not explored.

This paper extends our understanding of the complexity involved in the delivery of training programmes for young people.

Providing practitioners working in training settings with an account of the work which may address some of the criticisms often levelled at them. It has potential value to inform policy development, implementation and future forms of accountability.

The purpose of this article is to explore findings from the children's services mapping (CSM) policy monitoring exercise on the implementation of Children's Trust arrangements in England in 2008 and 2009. It outlines progress made in implementation in the context of debates on Children's Trusts and partnership working, considering where progress was being made and where implementation was less well developed. The future of partnership working in children's services and the role of the data collection in public service policy monitoring are discussed.

Responses are from a sub‐set of 74 local authorities to a self‐completion questionnaire on Children's Trust implementation in 2008 and 2009 as part of the CSM annual policy monitoring exercise.

Findings, presented within the context of Government policy on children's services reform and literature on partnership working, indicate increases in the number of Children's Trusts implementing joint and strategic working. However, not all agencies under a statutory duty were represented on the Board and joint commissioning arrangements had declined.

The findings and discussion consider the limitations of the method of data collection.

This paper presents the most recent information on implementing Children's Trust arrangements, drawing on responses from 49 per cent of local authority areas. Data from two years of the CSM collection alongside earlier research findings indicate progress at the strategic level, but careful reading of the data and literature also suggests an increasingly challenging environment for establishing and maintaining partnership working within children's services.