The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia

This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states, there is a far greater role for social services and non‐profit organizations are firmly established as key providers of frontline employment services. Since the late 1990s, UK welfare reforms have been gradually following the Australian lead in contracting non‐state actors as delivery agents. As this trend seems set to continue and intensify, we examine the Australian experience in order to reflect on the role of non‐profits in policy reform.     

Street‐level discretion,emotional labour and welfare frontline staff at the Australian employment service providers

Despite the current controversial debates about discretion in public bureaucracies in general, and in welfare agencies in particular, the current literature on street‐level bureaucracy mainly assumes that discretion is a distinctive feature of the daily work of public servants. Nonetheless, a pertinent question has not specifically been asked in this literature, that is, given the context of privatisation and increased welfare conditionality in the welfare sector that are seriously challenging welfare frontline staff's commitment to social justice and human rights‐based practices, what are forms of street‐level discretion likely to contribute to improving the quality of welfare services? In this study, we attempt to address this question by exploring discretion displayed by welfare frontline staff in four Australian employment service providers. We argue that emotional labour, especially when being informed by critical empathy, is an important and effective form of street‐level discretion that welfare frontline workers can perform to better support welfare recipients and minimise the punitive aspects of welfare policy.     

Developmental Social Policy,Social Welfare Services and the Non‐profit Sector in South Africa

The potential and challenge of constructing a democratic developmental welfare state through synergistic state‐civil society relations is the focus of this article. The author argues that while South Africa's pluralist approach, involving a leading role for the state in partnership with voluntary organizations, is a viable policy option to address the country's developmental challenges, anomalies between policy proclamations and actual practice raises questions about the efficacy of the partnership model and the gendered nature of welfare provision. Key governance issues and challenges, namely financial policies and institutional capability, underlie current failures in the delivery of welfare and care services, resulting in the non‐realization of these constitutionally guaranteed social rights. Further public action is needed to remedy the situation. Non‐profit organizations can advocate for policy reforms and challenge the instrumental nature of state‐civil relations and the abrogation of state responsibility for welfare services in contemporary South Africa.     

‘Best of Both Worlds’? A Comparison of Third Sector Providers in Health Care and Welfare‐to‐Work Markets in Britain

This article compares the welfare markets in primary health care and ‘welfare‐to‐work’ in the UK since the late 1990s. A longitudinal comparison of two different policy areas enables us to study the context in which marketization and the resulting shift of welfare provision takes place. We outline the general background of the market‐based reforms and highlight in what way policymakers have ascribed third sector organizations (TSOs) a number of positive characteristics, particularly the ability to address concerns about well‐known market failures. While consecutive governments promoted these organizations as welfare providers, case studies of two illustrative provider organizations in each policy area reveal a number of problems regarding their distinctiveness in increasingly competitive welfare markets. We conclude that the crisp distinction made by policymakers between the third and other sectors as well as the alleged advantages of the former present a rather naïve picture of a complex reality and argue for a more critical view of third sector characteristics and performance. The third sector is not only characterized by a high degree of fuzziness at the boundaries to other sectors, but even within single organizations, which often undergo significant transformations over time. As a result, policy intentions and practical outcomes are contradictory with TSOs losing their alleged distinctiveness as players in increasingly competitive markets. Furthermore, we contend that detailed longitudinal studies of organizations are essential in the advancement of the discussion of the third sector concept as they provide conceptual insights into organizational change and behaviour.     

‘Street‐level Bureaucracy’ Revisited: The Changing Face of Frontline Discretion in Adult Social Care in England

This reassessment of the continuing significance of Lipsky's (1980 ) work on ‘street‐level bureaucracy’ for frontline decision making is based on a retrospective review of the author's research on assessment practice in adult social care in England. The studies span the past two decades during which time successive governments have restructured and modernized social services departments. When these were established in 1970, they represented the high watermark of bureau‐professionalism – a mode of administration which dominated social welfare at the time Lipsky was writing. The subsequent dismantling of bureau‐professionalism calls into question the validity of his findings, and the author draws on her own research to assess conflicting views about the impact of social care reforms on the discretion which social workers exercise as street‐level bureaucrats. She concludes that the distinct types of discretion to emerge from her findings, represented in a taxonomy, are shaped by the differing micro environments of frontline practice which, in turn, affect the relative force of managerialism, professionalism and user empowerment in countering the defensive exercise of discretion described by Lipsky. Whilst her analysis affirms the continuing significance of Lipsky's analysis, it also points to the need for some revision to accommodate major shifts in welfare administration since the publication of his work. She highlights the potential relevance of these insights for investigating the next planned transformation of adult social care, personalization, as well as for the implementation literature more widely.     

Meeting (or not) at the street level? A literature review on street‐level research in public management,social policy and social work

This literature review analyses the adoption and development of a street‐level perspective in public management, social policy and social work. The last years have seen a prominent revival of a perspective based on Michael Lipsky's street‐level bureaucracy approach in the debates conducted within all three disciplinary fields. Based on 71 key publications in public management, social policy and social work, the review analyses the adoption of the street‐level bureaucracy approach during the period 2005–2015, pointing out the main themes of the debate within, as well as overlaps and differences between, the three disciplines. The findings show the potential of better integrating the different perspectives and taking stock of the articulated debate. Lastly, the review discerns a common viewpoint for further street‐level research, emphasising its importance for the critical analysis and understanding of street‐level work as a vital dimension of responsive and accountable institutions and as a decisive moment to shape positive policy outcomes on the ground. Key Practitioner Message: ? The use of discretion by frontline practitioners and their role as policy actors on the ground has become an important focus of research; ? This literature review shows that the debate has gone far beyond discussing discretion as an all‐or‐nothing issue, pointing out both positive and negative aspects of discretion and developing comprehensive frameworks to explain the use of discretion at the street‐level; ? However, street‐level research has traditionally rather neglected the notion of professionalism. The social work literature brings in the perspective of professionalism; more research efforts are needed to better explore and explain how professionalism matters in relation to challenges and dilemmas of different policy and practice fields.     

Towards a Multi‐level Approach on Frontline Interactions in the Public Sector: Institutional Transformations and the Dynamics of Real‐time Interactions

This study develops a multi‐level approach on frontline interactions in the public sector. Previous research suggests that detailed analyses of frontline interactions are essential to our understanding of how welfare services take shape when policies and rules are applied and negotiated in individual cases. The dynamics and performances of real‐time interactions have, however, rarely been analyzed as such. This study shows how the methods developed in the field of Conversation Analysis can contribute to this research. Our multi‐level approach integrates analyses of the policy‐ and institutional transformations that shape conditions for frontline interactions; and analyses of how policies and rules are evoked, negotiated and reshaped in the turn‐by‐turn organization and performances of interaction. The approach is applied on an analysis of how rules regarding financial aid are applied in an authority highly affected by changes in welfare policy towards standardization and detailed regulations. The empirical case is the Swedish Board for Study Support. The empirical study includes analyses of documents, interviews and analyses of taped telephone conversations. The study shows how institutional arrangements of standardization, detailed regulations, monitoring and depersonalization, structure the frontline work and shape narrow frames for officials' discretion in interactions with clients. The study also shows how rules are invoked and negotiated in recurrent practices in the interaction: in the careful design of decisions; in the investigations of alternatives and exceptions from the rules in order to find solutions to the client's problems. The analyses of concrete interactional practices clearly indicate that also a rule‐governed work dominated by task discretion involves recurrent negotiations, flexibility and local policy‐making.     

Negotiating dilemmas in the practices of street‐level welfare work

Hjörne E, Juhila K, van Nijnatten C. Negotiating dilemmas in the practices of street‐level welfare work Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 303–309 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. The theme of this mini‐symposium is based on the core ideas of two influential books published about 30 years ago, namely Michael Lipsky's Street‐Level Bureaucracy – Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (1980) and Jeffrey Prottas's People‐Processing – The Street‐Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies (1979). In these books, three dilemmas were identified that have great importance for welfare workers' position as mediators between institutions and citizens: autonomy versus control, responsiveness versus standardisation, and demand versus supply. In this editorial, we discuss these dilemmas with regard to the present context of street‐level welfare work, which is strongly influenced by managerialist policies (also called new public management). It is emphasised that in the era of managerialism, the dilemmas should be approached as empirical matters: how they are present, talked into being and negotiated in naturally occurring practices of street‐level welfare work, and with what consequences.     

Envisioning the Third Sector's Welfare Role: Critical Discourse Analysis of ‘Post‐Devolution’ Public Policy in the UK 1998–2012

Welfare state theory has struggled to come to terms with the role of the third sector. It has often categorized welfare states in terms of the pattern of interplay between state social policies and the structure of the labour market. Moreover, it has frequently offered an exclusive focus on state policy – thereby failing to substantially recognize the role of the formally organized third sector. This study offers a corrective view. Against the backdrop of the international shift to multi‐level governance, it analyses the policy discourse of third sector involvement in welfare governance following devolution in the UK. It reveals the changing and contrasting ways in which post‐devolution territorial politics envisions the sector's role as a welfare provider. The mixed methods analysis compares policy framing and the structural narratives associated with the development of the third sector across the four constituent polities of the UK since 1998. The findings reveal how devolution has introduced a new spatial policy dynamic. Whilst there are elements of continuity between polities – such as the increasing salience of the third sector in welfare provision – policy narratives also provide evidence of the territorialization of third sector policy. From a methodological standpoint, this underlines the distinctive and complementary role discourse‐based analysis can play in understanding contemporary patterns and processes shaping welfare governance.     

Practices of activation in frontline interactions: Coercion,persuasion, and the role of trust in activation policies in Germany

Following Michael Lipsky's well‐known argument that policy is made in the daily encounters between street‐level bureaucracy and citizens, a growing body of research emphasizes that actors and organizations delivering social and labor‐market policy play a crucial role in welfare‐state politics. Using qualitative data collected at three local employment agencies in Germany, this article explores worker‐client relations as a crucial mechanism through which activation policies are translated into practice. The analysis investigates how caseworkers define their role and their relationships with clients. The findings show that it is essential for caseworkers to achieve client compliance. In such a context, building relationships of trust is a strategic instrument in overcoming possible barriers to co‐operation in the caseworker‐client interaction. Caseworkers develop strategies to create the impression of trustworthiness and to motivate both unemployed clients and employers to become trust‐givers in the caseworker‐client relation. While research has often stressed the dichotomy between disciplining and enabling elements of activation policies, our explorative study shows that persuasion and trust‐building are a further important dimension of the frontline delivery of activation policies. These strategies reflect the importance of emotional aspects of frontline work.     

Citizen‐agency versus state‐agency at the frontline in prisons and probation services: A systematic literature review

Street‐level bureaucrats play a key role in the delivery of public services to the citizens with whom they interact. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta‐Analyses approach, we rely on a street‐level perspective to report a systematic review of 46 studies about officer–offender interactions in prisons and probation services. In doing so, we examine how correctional officers articulate state‐agency – whereby they focus on the implementation of rules and policies – and citizen‐agency – whereby their decisions regarding offenders are based on judgements of offenders' worth. Our results provide evidence that frontline work in prisons and probation services stems from a mix of citizen‐ and state‐agencies in which the former is prioritized over the latter: when rule enforcement allows it, correctional officers often make discretionary decisions based on professional judgements rooted in professional norms. In this respect, the managerial and actuarial approach to risk management and public protection involved by contemporary correctional reforms comes with new role expectations that conflict with correctional officers' rehabilitative ideals. At the same time, the literature provides many instances of officers coping with workload in order to meet policy objectives and organizational demands while maintaining satisfactory working conditions. In other words, there is an increasingly elaborate and fragile articulation of state‐ and citizen‐agencies at the frontline, in prisons and probations services. We conclude with some implications and an agenda for future research.     

Linking macro‐level mechanisms to street‐level accountability practices. A cross‐national case study of street‐level accountability of social workers in government funded homeless shelters

Available studies on the accountability relation between social work and the government are mainly conducted in Anglo‐Saxion countries. This limits the generalizability of these findings to other countries. Moreover, these studies hardly descent to the street‐level, making the perceptions and actions of social workers barely visible. To address this gap, this article explores how three elements of governance interact with street‐level accountability of social workers in homeless care in three country cases (the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany). The data (N26) was gathered by means of a mixed method design (interviews, focus groups and document analysis). By combining a street‐level bureaucracy research approach with a relational definition of accountability, we opened up the black box of what happens in these organizations and bridged the gap between macro‐level mechanisms and street‐level accountability. Our study adds three important insights to street‐level research of accountability in social work. First, elements of governance cannot be studied in isolation. Mechanisms should always be explained in relation to the context in which they are embedded. Second, the social workers in our cases do not perceive their accountability to the government as a professional obligation. They see it as a strategic mechanism to secure funding. Third, interaction is an important condition for the engagement of the social workers in their accountability relation with the government. More research is needed to develop a multi‐level theory that identifies which mechanisms play a role in the accountability relation between the government and social workers.     

Diversity and Identity in the Non-profit Sector: Lessons from LGBT Organizing in Toronto

The objective of this paper is to explore the ways in which diversity is taken into account in the conceptualization, definition and role of the voluntary sector as well as policy debates around the recasting of relations between the state and the voluntary sectors. The paper is based on a study of voluntary sector organizing among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens in the city of Toronto. It presents an overview of LGBT voluntary sector organizing in the city, demonstrating the rich network of non‐profit organizations that serve the LGBT community in the city of Toronto, Canada's largest city. The paper argues that the dominant cross‐national and cross‐time definitions of the voluntary sector do not account for some of the specific features of LGBT organizing and result in the marginalization of such organizing from the very concept of the voluntary sector. The paper discusses the implications of this mapping for policy discussions of the state–voluntary sector relationship. Drawing on the Canadian experience of government consultation with voluntary sector organizations, the paper demonstrates that such initiatives define certain forms of diversity in voluntary sector organizing out of the policy‐making process. Traditional policy‐making around voluntary sector issues is organized in ways that exclude urban and local identity‐based organizing.     

Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China

Xu Q, Guan X, Yao F. Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 10–21 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. An estimated 225 million Chinese people have migrated to cities from China's rural areas over the past two decades. These rural‐to‐urban migrant workers have greatly challenged China's welfare system. The pre‐reform welfare system was a duel scheme with an urban–rural distinction in which rural residents were not covered by state‐run welfare programs and had to rely on their families and rural collectives. The development of employment‐based social insurance programs in 1999 made social welfare programs available for rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Using an anonymous survey conducted in seven cities across China in 2006, we found that social insurance program participation rates were low among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Individual factors, including lack of knowledge of welfare programs and of a willingness to participate, and macro‐level factors, including type of employer and industry, are critical in determining migrant workers' participation in welfare programs. Implications for policies and practice are discussed.     

Performance Management,Caseloads and the Frontline Provision of Social Services

Caseloads and performance management are important working conditions of workers delivering public social services in street‐level organizations. The literature on these working conditions argues that high caseloads and performance management have considerable consequences for workers' performance in terms of the quality of services they provide and the results they realize. This article empirically investigates and compares these consequences, drawing on the results of a quantitative study of frontline workers in 14 local welfare agencies in the Netherlands. These workers are responsible for the delivery of welfare‐to‐work policies to social assistance recipients. The findings show that high caseloads do, indeed, have a detrimental effect on workers' performance, whereas the impact of performance management is more modest, though confirming some of the findings reported in other studies on performance management. The results also show that by focusing service provision on a proportion of their caseload, workers are able to reduce the negative impact of high caseloads somewhat. Overall, the article finds that the negative impact of high caseloads is more pervasive than that of performance management. The article concludes that the recent focus in the literature on performance management and its consequences for public services should not turn scholars' attention away from the ‘traditional’ public administration problem of high caseload sizes.     

Evidence-based Engagement in the Voluntary Sector: Lessons from Canada

The shift towards governance and greater reliance on third parties in the design, implementation and evaluation of policy has created new pressures to ensure that policies are designed and delivered in a consistent and effective manner. In the interest of improving transparency, accountability, effectiveness and efficiency, governments in Canada and in the UK, as in many industrialized countries, have begun to emphasize the need for evidence‐based policy‐making. As a result, knowledge and research have become key assets in the production of policy. Yet, with their current capacity and knowledge base wanting, governments have increasingly relied on the knowledge and information of external actors and have afforded greater authority to them on this basis. This has created a situation in which evidence‐based inputs are given greater weight. This shift has particular implications for voluntary sector organizations whose basis for intervention has lain historically with the interests that they represent. Already, in the Canadian case many national organizations have seen their focus shift to research activities under the impetus of new funding initiatives explicitly encouraging activities grounded in knowledge and policy analysis. Moreover, policy guidelines have been elaborated in order to enhance the sector's capacity to contribute to the development of policy in a depoliticized manner. Using a series of interviews conducted with representatives from national voluntary organizations in Canada, this article explores the implications of such a shift for the voluntary sector in Canada, and asks whether the Canadian case holds some lessons for voluntary sector–state relations in other jurisdictions.     

Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of Švejkism

Wastell D, White S, Broadhurst K, Peckover S, Pithouse A. Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of ?vejkism Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 310–320 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Recent UK government reforms have introduced a range of measures to regulate practice in child welfare, with professional work increasingly structured into formal processes embedded in information technology. This prompts obvious anxieties about the erosion of professional discretion. Using Lipsky's concept of the street‐level bureaucrat, we report on an ethnographical study examining how social workers organise their practice in an atmosphere of performance management. Clear indications of attenuated discretion are revealed, reflecting the shift to a managerial model of control. Of concern is the emergence of a pattern of formally conformant behaviour in which the letter of the organisational law is obeyed but without genuine commitment. Drawing on the anti‐hero of Ha?ek's celebrated satire, we denote this form of passive resistance ‘?vejkism’. While showing up the absurdities of excessive managerial power, such behaviours are ultimately dysfunctional for the organisation; an alternative governance paradigm, based on professional values, is briefly outlined.     

Street‐level Perceptions of Procedural Rights for Young Unemployed People – A Comparative Study between Sweden and Australia

Two types of welfare states are compared in this article. Differences in procedural rights for young unemployed at the level of service delivery are analyzed. In Australia, rights are regulated through a rigid procedural justice system. The young unemployed within the social assistance system in Sweden encounter staff with high discretionary powers, which makes the legal status weak for the unemployed but, on the other hand, the system is more flexible. Despite the differences, there is striking convergence in how the young unemployed describe how discretionary power among street‐level staff affects their procedural rights. This result can be understood as a result of similar professional norms, work customs and occupational cultures of street‐level staff, and that there is a basic logic of conditionality in all developed welfare states where procedural rights are tightly coupled with responsibilities.     

Going the Extra Mile? How Street‐level Bureaucrats Deal with the Integration of Immigrants

Dutch immigration and integration policies are being interpreted and implemented by local street‐level bureaucrats. We carried out 28 semi‐structured interviews with integration coaches, integration teachers and client managers in order to understand the dilemmas they face, and to explain their subsequent behaviour. The results show that although organizational characteristics such as the bureaucratic burden made street‐level bureaucrats reluctant to enlarge their discretionary space at the expense of policy rules, their willingness to help clients often transcends these boundaries under a combination of three conditions: high client motivation, extreme personal distress of the client, and negative assessment of existing policies and policy instruments (both in terms of fairness and practicality). Furthermore, street‐level bureaucrats were found to be constantly reinterpreting and revising their roles.