This book covers an important and neglected subject, and for that reason alone it should be in every university and agency library, as well as on desks in several Government departments. It has much to commend it, providing a wealth of information, but it also has weaknesses, and it is a book for reference rather than a steady read from cover to cover.

The book deals with the planning and management of residential childcare services of all types, focusing particularly on the years 1990 to 1995, the period in which the Children Act 1989 was implemented. As such, it will prove an invaluable snap-shot of the period for future social historians, and it is especially helpful because it covers not only children's homes and community homes with education, but also residential special schools, secure units and hospital units for children. Most writing tends to focus on particular types of residential care, reflecting the segmented way in which the British compartmentalise their services. For the children and young people whose needs the services are meant to meet, it is sometimes a matter of chance as to which service they are placed in, and within the profession there is often movement between the various settings. Catherine Street is to be commended, therefore, for taking a broad view of the scene.

The book works through twenty chapters in five parts, starting with the context and trends in social policy, going on to describe various sorts of provision, legislation and developments, analysing statistical data and costs, offering research findings from the author's own surveys and then drawing conclusions. For a short version of the book, read the last chapter, which essentially summarises the rest.

In the course of the book, all the main current issues are addressed and a lot of very important points are made. A senior manager who knows nothing of residential childcare will obtain a good briefing about key problems from the book.

It is not a book for the average student, though. It was based upon Catherine Street's thesis for a higher degree, and unfortunately it still reads rather like one. The book's theme is a subject of great interest to me personally, but I did find reading it rather a drag. It is fairly repetitive in places, and the style is suited to a student presentation. There is, for instance, a section on Europe. Comparison with European models of residential care is very important and has been widely neglected in this country. The countries reviewed, though, are described in a very limited fashion, and it would have suited the purposes of this book better to pick on key themes for comparison across the whole of Europe, rather than try to outline services in a few countries in such a limited fashion. Only the last chapter seems to be of a different quality, and flows more easily. It has to be said also that the book is riddled with poor punctuation and quite a lot of basic mistakes (data and criteria used in the singular, mitigate for militate and other common errors) which the publishers should have eradicated, even if they were still in the text of the thesis.

The essential message which comes through is that residential childcare services have had, still have and will continue to have an important role to play. They need to be properly resourced and planned. The haphazard planning, influenced by the vagaries of the market, as described in the book, is not good enough. The shortage of resources has affected the quality and effectiveness of the services, and the needs of children and young people have not been met to a significant extent. These issues need to be addressed, or the children will take their problems into adulthood, at a cost to themselves, to those close to them and to the community as a whole. It is to be hoped that politicians, civil servants and others in positions of power across all the relevant Government departments will take note.

David C. Lane