The Flaw in the Pluralist Heaven: Changing Strategies in the Coventry CDP

The original model for the national CDP was based on a belief that there were in our cities small concentrations of people with special problems which demanded special treatment. The Home Secretary in his 1969 speech in Parliament, when he announced the CDP, defined that category of people like this: ‘Although the social services cater reasonably well for the majority they are much less effective for a minority who are caught up in a chain reaction of related social problems. An example of the kind of vicious circle in which this kind of family could be trapped is ill-health, financial difficulty, children suffering from deprivation, consequent delinquency, inability of the children to adjust to adult life, unstable marriages, emotional problems, ill-health - and the cycle begins again.’ So it is clear that he had a precise view of the kind of people towards whom CDP was to be directed.