Catalogue description Personal Social Services Council: Records

The Personal Social Services Council was originally set up in 1973 by the Secretary of State for Social Services and held its inaugural meeting on 30 July 1973. Formal registration as an independent organisation under the Companies Acts 1948-1967 followed on 1st April 1974. It was financed by central and local government equally, the chairman and members serving in a voluntary capacity.

Its remit was to advise ministers on policy issues over the whole range of personal social services and to provide suitable information and guidance for all those concerned with the services in England and Wales.

The council was assisted in day-to-day affairs by an Executive Committee and a Research Committee. Working groups were set up from time to time, mainly to study existing services and advise on improvements, but also to comment on work by other bodies and government departments.

Reports and research papers were produced by the council's working groups and commissioned by them from various institutes, university departments etc., but they did not fund social services research outside their own particular fields of study and interest.

Following a decision by the Secretary of State for Social Services in December 1979, the council went into voluntary liquidation in June 1980. Some of its activities were concluded, some abandoned incomplete and some transferred: for example work of the study groups on collaboration in community care and intermediate treatment was taken over by the National Institute of Social Work.