Focusing on the enormous organisational and cultural changes that local authority social services have undergone since the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, this volume provides an overview of the structure and function of social care at practice, management and policy levels. It contains contributions from leading academics, researchers and practitioners in the UK, and also includes chapters on the experiences across the United Kingdom and abroad. The contributors examine the impact and effectiveness of key shifts in: the weighting of responsibility of central and local government who the...