Social services is now the seventh biggest public spending programme.
It is vital that the money spent on them is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. The purchasing power increase has meant that the social services departments of local authorities have been able to spend a great deal more on each major area of services. This review was based entirely on figures provided by local authorities through standard national returns. The review also, however, raises doubts about whether identifiable increases in demand and expectations account in full for all the rises in cost and in spending that occurred. One published attempt to reconcile the figures for the 1980s by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at Kent University suggested an adverse conclusion.