‘You're Just Treating Us as Informants!’ Roles,Responsibilities and Relationships in the Production of Children's Services Directories

Local authorities in England are required to make directories of services available to practitioners working with children and young people. This is against a background of continuing reforms intended to ensure that services are joined-up around the needs and choices of children, young people and their families. There are high expectations that more of these services will be delivered by organisations from theVoluntary and Community Sector (VCS), especially services for groups or communities that public sector agencies find hard to engage. This article reports and comments upon a regional study focusing on the production of children's service directories involving service providers and commissioners, as well as the producers of directories, in a series of facilitated workshop activities. The study highlights tensions between local authorities and service providers around how information about services is controlled, edited and accessed. We argue that current approaches to the provision ofdirectories are unlikely to have the transformational effects predicted by policy makers. This is partly because local authorities' traditional position (supported by the prevailing technologies) has meant that they have tended to monopolise the roles and responsibilities which in turn maintains their control of directory content. They do so in the face of increasing dissent from new and established providers. Moreover, current models of service directories fail to meet the emerging information needs of a range ofstakeholders including service providers, service commissioners and service users. Inconclusion we propose some questions to improve visibility and governance in the creation and maintenance of service directories.     

A Dutch Sodom and Gomorrah: Degenerates,moralists and authority in Yerseke, 1870–1914

In 1870, the Dutch state privatized several oyster banks in Zeeland waters. This measure brought about a rapid capitalization of the oyster industry. The Zeeland town of Yerseke soon became the national centre of oyster farming and trade. Initially, oyster farming was quite successful. Yerseke turned into an affluent country town which attracted hundreds of migrants. When by the mid-1880s serious problems assailed the oyster industry, a large number of people left the town, although newcomers were continually arriving. In the wake of these developments the community's social organization changed drastically and social control withered. Fights, drunkenness and theft were part and parcel of everday life. In the course of the 1890s, this social disorganization was checked by the civilizing missions of churches and the disciplining offensives of the local authorities and police. Perhaps even more important was the increasing social integration of the village community. The present article aims to uncover the dynamics and interrelations of these processes.