ABSTRACT
This chapter speaks to the much-debated turn in public services towards more personalised and participatory modes. It reproduces, in full, an influential pamphlet written by Charles Leadbeater on the subject, a writer, ‘expert’ on innovation and former journalist with the Financial Times. Published in 2004 by the cross party think tank Demos, it is both widely credited as having helped kick off the debate on how to create more personalised public services and roundly criticised as a thinly veiled attempt to advance individual responsibility for personal care. We include it here because it provides a concise introduction to personalisation as an evolving frame for public services while also recognising the different forms personalisation can take. How far we want to go with personalisation – be that as state, professional and/or public actors – remains to be seen. As a minimum, social workers need to consider their place in and contribution to this developing project.
