ABSTRACT
Financial constraints, political pressures and the attentions of the mass media have, over the past decade, transformed the climate in which the personal social services operate. The results have affected the lives of the women who make up the large majority of both staff and clients of local authority social services departments. At a time of wider economic insecurity and a shift in public opinion to the right, the restructuring of social services has had a differential impact, not only on women members of staff and clients as compared to men, but also among women themselves, according to their social class, ethnic and sexual identity and whether they are disabled.
