Tony Evans

After qualifying as a social worker I worked in community teams in Hampshire and Wiltshire, where I also completed specialist mental health training; I then worked in forensic mental health social worker in a Special Hospital.

My research focuses on discretion as an organisational practice in welfare policy and practice and as a professional attribute, particularly in social work. My work has explored the impact of managerialism on frontline discretion in welfare services. I have argued that management approaches often contribute to and exacerbate the problems they claim to solve. As part of this work I examined policy implementation analysis and developed a critical re-evaluation of street level bureaucracy theory, and the relationship between policy and professional practice nationally and internationally.  My research has also looked at ideas of expertise and ethics and how these relate to claims to discretion in professional practice. My current research develops this work further through: the exploration of discretion as a creative practice and using drama as a form of research enquiry to understand activity-dependent expertise; and exploring professional ethics as a practical decision-making process – particularly through exploring current tensions in adult social work.