ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the innovation in the statutory services. Typically, voluntary bodies are formed to pursue a particular end and their members have little interest in the wider implications of voluntarism or the notion of a general voluntary movement. The establishment of the 'Factory' community centre in Newington Green in 1974 owes its origins to the development of an explicit 'public participation policy' to increase the community's say in the running and direction of council services. Patchwork is legally constituted as a charitable housing association and has both permanent property and about a hundred short-life houses. Hospitals are well known as examples of elaborate hierarchical structures, strict adherence to rules, and formal relations between different grades of staff and between staff and patients. Residential care of the elderly offers perhaps the most extreme example of the passive role expected of the social services client.
