ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the findings of the case study in relation to the nature of management within Social Services as a street-level bureaucracy, particularly at the interface between front-line managers and senior managers, in terms of its structure and the range of managers' motivations. The primary organisational difference is that, while the Older Persons Team (OPT) largely operates within the organisational context of the local authority, the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) operates in the overlapping context of Social Services and Health. The CMHT combines Health and Social Services teams. However, local managers do not see the two services within the team as integrated to any significant degree. Managers are presented by Michael Lipsky and the domination perspective as a homogenous and unified group: they implement policy, and they seek to control the discretion of street-level practitioners. Local managers in the Older Persons Team have strong misgivings about the authority's policy in relation to older people's services.
