Social Work and the Third Way: Tough Love as Social Policy.(Book review)

SOCIAL WORK AND THE THIRD WAY: TOUGH LOVE AS SOCIAL POLICY Bill Jordan with Charlie Jordan London: Sage Publications, 2000; 242 pp (PB) AUD46.50, USD34.70, GBP19.99 ISBN 0-7619-6721-4

Bill Jordan is a veteran contributor to the literature of social work and social policy. His interests in the field are broad and amongst his formidable list of publications are key works on the impact of globalization (Jordan 1998), poverty (Jordan 1996) and social work practice (Jordan 1979). In this publication, he is joined by his brother who is involved in the nongovernmental sector developing training for social regeneration projects.

This book addresses in considerable detail the impact of the New Labour government on social policy in the United Kingdom and more specifically, the kind of social work practiced within the 'Third Way' policy environment. The authors utilise the term 'Tough Love' to describe the values underpinning the Third Way approach to social policy, with its emphasis on work, taxation and individual responsibility, social inclusion and the retreat from an explicit focus on poverty. Thus, the book can be read alongside many others, including those that address issues for policy and practice in New Zealand and Australia (see for example, Rees and Rodley 1995; Kelsey 2000; Cheyne et al 2000; and in the UK, Powell 2001 and Harris 2003).

The central themes are the implementation of the 'values' of the Third Way, the importance of the focus on social inclusion, its partial success and the impact of these matters on the profession of social work. The Jordans argue that social work has suffered under the New Labour government as the struggle to address social exclusion has floundered in a sequence of approaches that arrived with Thatcherism, and were embedded within managerialist discourses. Despite the potential for innovative projects to address poverty and inclusion, especially through social regeneration and community development, the prevailing emphasis in social work is surveillance, risk assessment (Kemshall 2002), care management and rationing of services through the development of rigid technical assessment tools.

Social Work and the Third Way will be of greatest interest to educators and researchers in social work and social policy. Sociologists with an interest in professional practice in health settings will find another perspective on the impact of policy on everyday practice. Social workers in health settings share concerns with other health professionals about ethical and moral independence and the primacy of service consumers within the managerialist discourse.

The book asserts that social work under New Labour has tended to become bogged down in services where the role is overly prescribed and reliant on pre-determined, pre-packaged service delivery. Part One examines the major themes of the book with a variety of examples from policy and practice. Part Two looks specifically at sectors, including local authority adult and children's services and services for people with disabilities. Part Three ...