ABSTRACT
More recently, experiments with ‘patch’ and neighbourhood social work have included a strand of user participation, with Social Services workers being seen as accountable to direct, indirect, and potential users of social services in their locality. Decentralisation has been one of the key themes linked in with ‘patch’ and community social work thinking. The Barclay Report proposed local welfare advisory committees, ‘to provide a forum in which representatives of clients, employers and social workers could discuss agency policies with respect to the rights of clients, including such issues as confidentiality, access to information and criteria for resource allocation’. Barclay’s proposals were clearly pitched at the level of giving information and receiving complaints. But even these modest proposals have resulted in very little action and most Social Services departments still do not have a comprehensive complaints procedure.
