<p>British Journal of Social Work Vol. 43 no. 3 (Apr. 2013), p. 430-445</p> <p>Available in library.&nbsp; See journal shelves.</p> <p>Available online.</p>

There is a growing body of research about the current forms of electronic information systems (IS) being used in human service organisations in both the UK and Australia, which demonstrates that, far from being a positive development, their implementation can impede service delivery. These problems have been acknowledged in the recent review of child protection services in England by Professor Eileen Munro and attention is now shifting to how current IS may be modified and future IS designed. In this article, ‘technologies-in-practice’, as a conceptual approach to understanding the interactions between practitioners and IS, is applied to the findings of research that focused on how practitioners in a child protection agency used a set of decision-making tools (Structured Decision Making) embedded in an IS. The aim is to demonstrate how this approach might be used to contribute to an evidence base that might guide the future development of IS in ways that enhance the abilities of practitioners, particularly by focusing attention on their needs rather than organisational imperatives for compliance and accountability.