AbstractThe Child Assessment Order was one of the most hotly debated features of the Children Act 1989, but since the implementation of the Act there has been very little use of the Order. This article is based on research into the reasons for this phenomenon. The findings are located within a theoretical framework encompassing perspectives on the relationships between “the state” and “the family,” focusing particularly on the political and professional divisions within “the state,” and on the tensions between the discourses of law and welfare. It is concluded that the ostensibly pragmatic reasons which practitioners give for not using the Order may best be understood as symptoms of an underlying struggle for the control of social work