View report page

9
Directorate of Social Services,
Municipal Offices,
Royal Hill, S.E.10.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
London Borough of Greenwich.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to present this account of the Health and Community
Care Services of the London Borough of Greenwich for
1968. The progress along a broad front which was chronicled last
year has continued. Local Government is in the painful process of
trying to adapt its functions and structure to modern needs while
attempting to utilise new techniques and management within a
framework designed for a different age, for a more leisurely
tempo and for entirely different purposes.
As a result of the Maud recommendations and after the most
careful analysis of all the facts and arguments, the Council have
created a Directorate of Social Services embracing the health,
welfare and children's services elements of the Council's responsibility.
The Council is satisfied that this seems the most efficient and
economic way of providing a properly co-ordinated comprehensive
family service and it is to be hoped that the opportunity will be
given to prove that they were correct in their assessment.
This is the age of reports by experts on problems of the day
and one is overwhelmed with a deluge of concentrated wisdom
and facile solutions to intractable problems. This year has been
no exception. Generally, the Green Paper on the Health Services
Administration and Organisation has been given an unfavourable
reception and another draft from the Government will be forthcoming
next year. The long-delayed and much heralded Seebohm
Report finally appeared in July. I think it is fair to say that, in
the most responsible circles, it has been received with some reserve
for the conclusions and recommendations seem to bear little
relation to the main body of evidence and opinions which were
given to the Committee. It is not difficult to recognise that the
text was written by an already committed few and it seems as
much an exercise in propaganda as a sober compilation of future
social needs. It reserves its panegyrics for the favoured few.
Although it is repetitive and at times is self contradictory and
indulges in pseudo-sociological sermonising based on inadequate
fieldwork research and enquiry, the Report is not without virtue in
that it encompasses a great deal of interesting information about
the social services. It is the obvious lack of objectivity which