The service relationship is far from an automatic process. It encounters resistance from service users that leads to non-take-up. If a service user is to benefit more from this relationship, we have to conceptualize it in a new way. The agent concerned must work not only on his or her relationship with users, but also on providing services. The analysis of non-take-up requires a model which takes the provision of services into account. Service users cannot be taken into consideration independently of their relation to service provision and its normative content. The “social relation to service” model offers a better account of these elements.