The banking system is in crisis, the economy is on the edge of recession and unemployment is rising fast.

Read: Analysis: Credit Crunch - Children's services face up to an uncertain future.

There is little doubt that the social impact of the recession is already beginning to have repercussions on the work of educationists, children's workers and social services. The double whammy will come when reductions in resource coming one way meet the increase in needs coming the other. The recession as a causal factor may be hard to quantify in precise terms, but there will be tangible repercussions in terms of additional working pressures in classrooms, care settings and other forms of provision. The solutions will require a far greater emphasis on partnership working, more effective use of resources and above all a need for service managers to place a greater strategic value on the expertise and contribution of their frontline public sector workforce.