Managing Fragmentation: An Area Child Protection Committee in a Time of Change (Welfare and Society)

The rise of New Public Management and the fragmentation of agencies that resulted created unprecedented new tensions and problems in multi-agency work. This book provides an insight into the workings of a large multi-agency committee, exploring the manner in which different agencies brought their own agendas, organizational structures and world-views to a multi-agency forum and expected working relationships to be relatively problem free. Charting the development of child protection in the UK, it explores the problems and prospects of both multi-agency working and new public management, under the auspices of "joint working" initiatives. It offers an insight into how members of an area child protection committee viewed working with others, drawing on detailed comments and quotes from those directly involved.