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This paper considers recent guidance on social care for deafblind adults and children issued to local authorities in March 2001 by the Department of Health under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. It uses Staffordshire Social Services Department's response to the guidance as a case study to identify areas of good practice and make practical suggestions for implementation. The guidance places the responsibility for improving provision to deafblind people squarely on social services, rather than including other agencies such as health and education. The paper argues that this may be hindering the development of integrated services.

This paper describes the second phase of Project INISS which involved structured interviews with 151 members of staff of four social services departments. The planning, design and execution of the interviews are described and results are analysed under three headings: the context of information needs, organization communication, and information need/information‐seeking behaviour. The implications of the work for the information profession are explored.

This paper explores the links between the PGO and social services in relation to abuse and to local authority management of the finances of vulnerable people. It also reports a small‐scale study of adult protection co‐ordinators in social services departments, which explored the nature of and contact between the two agencies in the context of adult protection inquiries.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

The introduction of quality in the public sector has received scant attention, particularly in the area of local authority social services departments. Examines the state of quality progress in social services departments throughout the UK. Findings are reported which suggest that several social services departments are taking on board the concept of quality and the implementation programmes thereby produced. However, some are in the slow track and a proposed implementation blue‐print is put forward.

Effective Management of information is essential to delivery of high‐quality services, particularly in inter‐agency working. Many social services departments are suspicious of information systems, partly because of past experience of inappropriate solutions. The paper suggests an approach to help departments to build on existing systems so they can move towards better management and practitioner support.

Efficiency has not been the most familiar concept in the vocabulary of the personal social services in recent years. Some of the more obvious reasons for this having been the post‐Seebohm emphasis on expansion; the lack of clarity about service outputs and objectives; and the relative failure of the economics profession, with only a few exceptions, to concern itself with developments in this area in contrast with, say, the National Health Service. However, now that the post‐oil crisis economic recession has reduced prospects for growth in the personal and other social and public services almost to zero, in the short to medium term, the efficient use of resources assumes greater importance. This is in complete contrast to recent experience when, during the years of rapid expansion, efficiency was, inevitably, a poor second to the objective of maximising inputs. That is not to suggest that resources were deliberately wasted, but the development of new services in a growing number of areas, often on an ad hoc basis, meant that some inefficiency was unavoidable. Now the economic climate has changed and it is vital that the recession is used as a period of consolidation. Existing practices need to be rigorously examined in the search for more cost‐effective methods of achieving objectives. If this can be done at all successfully it will provide managers in the social services with much greater flexibility to meet the increasing pressures of future demands and conflicting priorities, and might even prevent that blunt instrument, the pro rata cut, being over employed. Of course, even the most efficient authority may not be able to avoid some cuts in service provision, but these will be most easily kept to a minimum by identifying areas where genuine savings can be made.

This paper aims to explore how the introduction of new accounting information influences the understandings of cost-consciousness. Furthermore, the paper explores how managers use accounting information to shape organizational members’ understanding of changes, and how focusing on cost-consciousness influence professional culture within social services.

The paper is based on a case study, drawing on sensemaking as a theoretical lens. Top management, middle management and staff specialists at a medium-sized Danish municipality are interviewed.

The paper demonstrates how accounting metaphors can be effective in linking cost information and cost-consciousness to operational decisions in daily work practices. Further, the study elucidates how professionalism may be strengthened based on the use of accounting information.

The study is context specific, and the role of accounting in professional work varies on the basis of the specific techniques involved.

The paper shows how managers influence how professionals interpret and use accounting information. It shows how cost-consciousness can be integrated with social work practices to improve service quality.

The paper contributes to the literature on how accounting information influences social work. To date, only a few papers have focused on how cost-consciousness can be understood in practice and how it influences professional culture. Further, the study expands the limited accounting metaphor research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of performance measurement systems as technologies of government in the operationalisation of smart city programmes. It answers the research question: how do the development and use of performance measurement systems support smart cities in the achievement of their goals?

This paper presents a longitudinal case study that uses an interventionist approach to investigate the possibilities and limitations of the use of performance measurement systems as technologies of government in a smart city. Interpretations are theoretically informed by the Foucauldian governmentality framework (Foucault, 2009) and by public sector performance measurement literature.

The findings address the benefits and criticalities confronting a smart city that introduces new performance measurement systems as a technology of government. Such technologies become problematic tools when the city network is characterised by a fragmentation of inter-departmental processes, and when forms of resistance emerge due to a lack of process owners, horizontal accountability and cooperation among involved parties.

This paper is based on a case study of a single smart city, and outlines the need for both comparative and multidisciplinary analyses in order to analyse the causes and effects of smart city challenges.

This paper offers a critical understanding of the role of accounting in the smart city. The ineffectiveness of performance measurement systems is related to the multiple roles of such technologies of government, which may lead to a temporary paralysis in the achievement of smart city goals and programmes.

The cardinal point to note here is that the development (and unfortunately the likely potential) of area policy is intimately related to the actual character of British social policy. Whilst area policy has been strongly influenced by Pigou's welfare economics, by the rise of scientific management in the delivery of social services (cf Jaques 1976; Whittington and Bellamy 1979), by the accompanying development of operational analyses and by the creation of social economics (see Pigou 1938; Sandford 1977), social policy continues to be enmeshed with the flavours of Benthamite utilitatianism and Social Darwinism (see, above all, the Beveridge Report 1942; Booth 1889; Rowntree 1922, 1946; Webb 1926). Consequently, for their entire history area policies have been coloured by the principles of a national minimum for the many and giving poorer areas a hand up, rather than a hand out. The preceived need to save money (C.S.E. State Apparatus and Expenditure Group 1979; Klein 1974) and the (supposed) ennobling effects of self help have been the twin marching orders for area policy for decades. Private industry is inadvertently called upon to plug the resulting gaps in public provision. The conjunction of a reluctant state and a meandering private sector has fashioned the decaying urban areas of today. Whilst a large degree of party politics and commitment has characterised the general debate over the removal of poverty (Holman 1973; MacGregor 1981), this has for the most part bypassed the ‘marginal’ poorer areas (cf Green forthcoming). Their inhabitants are not usually numerically significant enough to sway general, party policies (cf Boulding 1967) and the problems of most notably the inner cities has been underplayed.