This paper considers some of the issues concerning the social work response to child protection which are currently being debated by professionals involved in this field. In particular, the paper considers where there is an imbalance in the system, with too much emphasis being placed on child protection at the expense of child welfare. It describes how one authority has sought to focus its child protection investigation system. This has been achieved firstly through the use of management information to measure performance and make comparisons between different areas. This information was then used as the basis of training, encouraging staff to renew their practice and ensure that an appropriate response is made to child care referrals and that children are not drawn into the child protection net inappropriately but are dealt with within a child welfare framework. Examination of a sample of child protection investigations showed that where welfare needs were investigated, attempts were made to use available resources to meet these needs. KEY WORDS: child protection; performance measurement; child welfare; training ince the death of Maria Colwell in 1973 and the S subsequent inquiry brought the problem of child abuse to public attention, social work intervention has often been the subject of professional and public scrutiny. From the early seventies, cases where social workers were seen to have failed to protect children have attracted professional criticism through inquiries and media attention (Department of Health , 1991;Alaszewski and Manthorpe, 1991;Parton, 1995). More recently it has been suggested by researchers and in Inquiry reports that too many families have been undergoing unnecessary and inappropriate child protection investigations (