Scientific Management, Bureau-Professionalism, New Managerialism: The Labour Process of State Social Work

Correspondence to John Harris, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK. E-mail: J.Harris{at}warwick.ac.uk Summary An outline is provided of radical social work writers' use ofBraverman's labour process thesis on scientific management toaccount for developments in state social work in the late 197Os/early1980s. The advocacy of a scientific management model in radicalsocial work texts is tested against the existence of a bureau-professionalsocial work labour process in the 1970s/early 1980s. The natureof this bureau-professional labour process is explored and thenused as a baseline from which to chart developments in statesocial work in the late 1980s/1990s towards a new managerialistlabour process.