For decades, social work policy has been geared around checklists, maximizing throughput of cases, and responding to scandals. In this ground-breaking work, Dr Judy Foster makes the case that such biases promote neither efficiency nor client satisfaction. Instead, she urges a complete overhaul, based on five principles: policy coherence; organisational support; autonomy; professional development; and finding space to think. The ideas she puts forward can be taken up by all social workers and those in social care, from their second year of qualifying training, to policy makers and leaders in the field. In addition to UK social workers, her evidence-based proposals will have wide appeal to an international social work readership.