felt that Oxfam was well placed to do what Bob Geldof attempted 30 years later - lead a national campaign to Make Poverty History. This would have involved educating the public on the enormity and complexity of relieving poverty in the Third World which could only be done by massive British government aid. Oxfam's trustees were afraid it would lose its charitable status and Stacey resigned. As in the Church he was ahead of his time. Stacey's next move was to become in 1971 the first Director of Social Services for the 300,000-strong population of the London Borough of Ealing. Social Service departments had been created as a result of the Seebohm report which brought together in one local government department children's and young people's services, the mentally and physically handicapped, the mentally ill and elderly to create a 'cradle to grave' caring service. It was a controversial appointment because Stacey was neither a social worker nor a local government officer. In spite of this three years later he was appointed to be Kent's Director of Social Services, one of the three largest departments in the country, with 6,000 staff caring for 50,000 clients serving a population of 1.5 million. The publication 'A Study in Leadership: Nick Stacey and Kent Social Services' written by Don Brand, published in January 2009, explains, 'Stacey inherited a department needing extensive modernisation in an authority with little appetite for change. Seen from outside, Kent was a dead-beat place. It wasn't somewhere you went to work, it wasn't cutting edge....the place was absolutely dire and in many ways it was quite brave of Nick to go there.' By the time Stacey left in 1985 he had transformed Kent into one of the leading departments in the country with a national reputation for imaginative innovation and a strong influence on government policy. He was responsible for pioneering from scratch two projects which were to become national government policy. The first was to introduce Professional Fostering for delinquent and troubled teenagers. Hitherto pre-puberty children in care were mainly fostered while teenagers were placed in institutions. Stacey was convinced that putting a lot of unloved, insecure, often delinquent and troubled teenagers together exacerbated their problems while the institutionsto which they were sent became springboards for borstal and prison. Carefully selected and well supported professional foster parents were paid a fee so that if a married couple fostered two