ABSTRACT
It was never intended that the interviews with purchasers of residential care and treatment services for children and young people would be a large part of this research. From the start, the main focus was the providers of residential provision. It was nevertheless unfortunate that the response to requests for interviews with purchasers was very poor and only 8 interviews were completed. This was from a total of 30 requests made to 10 out-patient child psychiatric health units, 10 local education authority special needs departments and 10 social service departments.
