ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the formal organisational properties that operate in the setting and discusses the display their relevance to the uncertain and unobserved practices of the child care workers. It shows that official indices of administrative calculation and control are more likely to obfuscate than reveal the way work is routinely accomplished. The social workers in the area office like others have to manage an unpredictable work world. The discrepancy between the practitioner’s reality and the departmental means of official accounting and control entails subjective detachment by the experienced worker. The ambiguity of case numbers and the variable ways in which social work agencies officially classify cases is a recognised occupational problem. The majority of social workers describe their cases as documented in the form of summaries of varying length and detail. Depending on the workers’ view of cases they will receive perfunctory or highly detailed recording.
