Ferguson and Lavalette's contention that the current UK Coalition Government is intent on using the present crisis of capitalism to drive through massive attacks on how social care is provided is well made. The fact that the Labour Party and, in Scotland, the SNP are not doing more to resist these significant structural changes in how care is organised and provided is likely to lead to further conflicts between local councils and their social care workforces, service users, carers and communities. The drive towards more privatisation of public services, cuts in social care support for the most vulnerable and reductions in the social care workforce's wages and employment conditions, particularly by voluntary organisations, corporate charities and profit-making private companies, have to be fought.

As the authors point out, Glasgow City Council's decision to use the policy of personalisation (self-directed support) as the primary means of achieving spending cuts in the city's social care budget undermines any notion of individual empowerment and choice for the vast majority of the city's 4,000 citizens who receive support through the adult social care services budget (the policy is being rolled out to children with a disability in 2013 and to those over 65 years old after that). Glasgow City Council aims to cut 20% from its total spending on current adult care service users over the two yearsfrom 2012 to 2014. The council has defended this by saying that 9% of this will be redirected to new service users not currently in receipt of any support. However, that still means that 11%, or £10m from the total 2012 budget of £90m, is being cut from adult social care in the city over two years. The council says that managing a smaller cake means that some people must get less in order that others get something – the question of course is: will anyone get what they really need to ensure basic care never mind deliver social participation? A recent UNISON survey of workers in the city's adult care teams confirmed the disconnection between the council's promotion of individual budgets as ‘helping you do things you want to do’ with the senior management's messages to frontline staff that the individual budgets simply need to cover life-and-limb risks.