Robert Adams and Wade Tovey,Consultancy in public services: Empowerment and transformation

Reviewed by: Patricia Wood, Freelance Social Care Staff Development Consultant and Practice Educator/Assessor, Essex, England

I have to admit that I struggled somewhat with this book, mainly because of my past experiences in local authority settings when the expert power of consultants, combined with the legitimate power of managers, appeared to be focused on ensuring staff compliance in order to achieve organisational goals. And also because the structure and contents page of ‘Consultancy in public services’ gave me little (if any) sense of an intended readership, something that is particularly important to me when reviewing and recommending books to others. However, while reading the ‘Introduction’ and Part 1 of ‘Consultancy in public services’ I began to realise that my lack of a sense of readership probably arose from the fact that the book has grown out of the authors ‘consultancy in public services carried out over the past 25 years,’ and is the unplanned outcome of their experiences (p. vii). Nevertheless, despite this realisation and beginning to find my own reading ‘hooks’, for example, references to Maslow under the subheading ‘Needs of people’ (p. 20), and the statement that ‘above all, the capable consultant practises ethically, which puts at the centre of this practice the interests of the client and the citizen rather than the income of the consultant’ (p. 22), at this stage, my engagement with the book was still somewhat limited.

However, Part 2 proved to be more interesting that I’d expected, mainly because I began to identify more similarities between Adams and Tovey’s practice as consultants and empowering social work practice, and therefore I wasn’t surprised to find out that both authors ‘happen to be professionally qualified social workers’ and that it was interesting for them to ‘perceive the similarities between social work and consultancy in general’ (p. 64). In chapter four ‘Engaging’ the authors state that ‘The three factors in the ingredients of the empowerment approach to consultancy – motivation, support and capacity – exist at different levels relative to each other within settings like individuals, teams and organisations’ (p. 84); and in my opinion Tables 4.1 (p. 85), 4.2 (p. 87) and 4.3 (p. 90) will be of interest to any professional involved in the process of consultancy and/or managing change.

Unfortunately, I found chapter five ‘Empowering’ less compelling. This was possibly because historically empowerment in social work has related to radical theories about social change, and the assumption that it is possible to change society to help the service user; rather than trying to bring about the overthrow of society in order to transform oppressive social relations – theories that would be difficult (if not impossible) to apply within current statutory social work practise let alone visualise as part of public service consultancy. However, this chapter does contain a number of examples that would be of interest to a range of professionals covering issues like ‘Supporting whistle-blowing’ (p. 132), ‘Surmounting barriers to continuing professional development’ (p. 134), ‘Improving the effectiveness of drug awareness and intervention services’ (p. 134), ‘Promoting social care employers working together’ (p. 140) and ‘Enhancing the quality of hospital food’ (p. 141).

In Part 3 ‘Reflections’, the authors acknowledge that ‘there is little doubt that consultancy has been the boom industry of the 20th into the 21st century’ (p. 161); and this, when considered alongside the current scope of public services appears to me to militate against Adams and Tovey’s empowering approach to consultancy. Especially in a climate and culture where ‘at every stage, consultants are employed who bid against each other for successive contracts rather than engaging in long-term work in a particular field’ (p. 168).

Having reviewed ‘Consultancy in public services’ my sense of an intended readership remains uncertain, although I’m sure that it would be interesting to professionals who became consultants once they retired from practice and are still primarily working within their own areas of expertise; and to academics and other professionals employed in social work and health education settings. However, while agreeing with the authors that ‘The 21st century sees policy makers, politicians, managers, professionals and citizens struggling with the questions of how far it is possible, or even desirable, to sustain public services in a time of diminishing capacity, or motivation, by the state to finance them’ (p. 214), and that consultancy will have to ‘continue to change as the public services themselves undergo further transformation’ (p. 215). I doubt it is likely to change in the empowering way that Adams and Tovey have experienced and reflected on in this book.