In the last few years, social services departments have embraced the contract culture with regard to children's services in different ways. Some have restructured their services to achieve a complete organizational split between the purchasers and providers of services. For others, the tensions involved in such radical restructuring have been too great, and there has been little change. In voluntary child care organizations, there has always been a tradition of provision of specialist services, some of which are now formally contracted to local authorities. While children's services are undergoing changes, training and development units have often been asked to be responsible for changing organizational cultures and providing new or enhanced skills for the workforce. Ironically, training and development is also going through the same sorts of changes in its own contract culture. There are key principles for those involved in training in the contract culture. One principle is to encourage collaboration rather than competition; also, training should be policy led and linked to an organizational strategy that reflects clear service delivery objectives. Training units should ensure that the staff development function is not lost and that all organizations, including those not competing in the market, have access to learning opportunities. Training units should also ensure that knowledge of contracting and child care issues is up to date and that core values are maintained under any revised structures.