Public debate around children’s services in England invariably takes place in the context of the latest high profile serious child protection case. Politicians promise that lessons will be learned and that steps will be taken to address the failings of the agencies and, typically, the social workers implicated. This book challenges the idea that it is the apparent failings of local agencies and children’s social workers that drive successive waves of reform. Instead, it turns the spotlight on the process of policy-making at the national level, and exposes the political drivers of change.