This chapter critically examines the implications of the recent reconfiguration of the role of the social service manager in Sweden and Britain. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with social service managers and social work practitioners the chapter focusses upon the dual relationship between fragmentation and interconnectedness within new public governance and management. Whilst locating the potential of connective capacities of new public governance within distinct political, economic and governance settings, the chapter also reveals the capacity of social work to engage actively with civil society and so respond rapidly to changing political and economic conditions at national and transnational level.