Facing Up to Underfunding: Equity and Retrenchment in Community Care

Local social services departments in the UK are expected to distribute their cash-limited budgets for community care in ways that achieve an equitable allocation of resources in situations where, with present levels of funding, they cannot meet all the needs with which they are presented. This paper discusses a case study of the introduction of a "needs-based" formula to allocate a local authority's budget for home care services and a follow-up survey to investigate whether services reached the people intended to benefit. The article argues that the "gatekeeping" role of community care assessments is important to safeguard equity without the inflexibility of highly standardized tests of eligibility. However, with the new Labour government seeking to reduce dependency on public expenditure, and a growing lobby for national standards of social care, it will be increasingly important that local authorities justifiy their different practices with evidence about how they relate to local needs.     

Equivalent Salaries in Five Australian Capital Cities

Over the last decade, the spatial or geographical nature of social and economic indices has proliferated. It is well understood that there are geographical variations in prices, particularly housing prices. What we do not know is relative wages – that is, given a wage in one place, what is the wage to attain the same standard of living in another place. Utilising recent budget standard research, this paper calculates relative salaries for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide. It is found that in 2006 households in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth respectively require on average 24%, 7% and 4% more private income than equivalent Brisbane households to achieve the same standard of living, whereas Adelaide residents require 7% less private income than Brisbane residents. Changes in these relativities from 2003 to 2006 are examined. The public policy responses to such findings are also discussed.     

Exploring the role of fringe lenders in the lives of Queenslanders

The fringe lending sector in Australia has experienced considerable growth over the last decade. However, very little is known about the profile of the typical borrower or the typical lender – though much is assumed about the morality and motivation of both. Drawing upon findings from a pilot study conducted in Queensland during 2008–2009, we discuss the changing landscape of fringe lending in Australia before exploring how borrowers and lenders construct their respective motivations and actions. We conclude that the use of fringe lenders by low‐income Australians provides useful insights into the growth of fringe lending in Australia and the limitations of policy responses that are trapped in the regulation versus non‐regulation debate. We suggest that a more appropriate response must also consider the wider context of insufficient incomes to meet increased living costs. The policy debate needs to ensure that it acknowledges the complex demand and supply reasons for increasing demand for short term credit. The debate also needs to recognise that, in the absence of alternatives, fringe lending products will remain a prominent aspect of the financial management strategies of Australians living on low incomes.     

Social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed in the Nordic countries

Kallio J, Blomberg H, Kroll C. Social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed in the Nordic countries In recent decades, municipal social workers have become the implementers of new types of social policy measures aimed at activating the unemployed. These policies put a greater emphasis on the individual's own responsibility for being unemployed. Little is known, however, about how social workers view the unemployed – one factor that might influence how policies are in fact implemented. Therefore, our purpose was to analyse Nordic social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed and their determinants: Do social workers' attitudes correspond with a more individualistic view on unemployment? We utilised the data from surveys of professional social workers in four Nordic countries. Our analyses showed that individualistic attitudes towards the unemployed appeared to be rather rare among Nordic social workers. However, attitudinal differences were found between and within countries.     

Attitudes towards the unemployed. An analysis of Swedish survey data

To be unemployed is often associated with being stigmatised by others. People may blame the unemployed themselves, insist that they could find a job if they tried harder, maintain that too little is demanded from recipients of unemployment benefits and consider differences in standard of living between the unemployed and the employed too small. This article is aimed at studying the prevalence of such negative attitudes and to examine the determinants behind them. In May 2000, questions were added on to a randomly selected subsample in the regular Swedish labour force survey. The results indicate that own unemployment experience and perceived risks of becoming unemployed make people less apt to blame the unemployed. Having family members or close friends with unemployment experience tends to have a similar impact. In contrast, young people more often express stigmatising attitudes. With respect to social class position the results are divided.     

Families on the brink: the effectiveness of family support services

This paper presents findings from a study of the costs and effectiveness of family support services offered to 40 families with a high level of need, in two neighbouring local authorities in North Wales. It describes the level and type of services offered by different agencies in each of the authorities, estimates the costs of these services, and assesses outcomes for the families receiving them after three months. Information is also provided about families’ experience of the support they received, and the kind of help they would have liked. Parents’ well‐being and family functioning were found to improve over the intervention period in both authorities, although only to a limited extent. Improvements were greater among those who were living with partners, and less among families identified by social workers as having financial difficulties or problems with drug or alcohol abuse. Respondents who rated their problems as very severe showed less improvement. The pattern of service provision and the costs involved turned out to be similar in both authorities, so it was not possible to reach conclusions about the relationship between services and outcomes. However, a number of themes emerging from the data are discussed, including the role of day care services in supporting families with young children, the impact of poverty and deprivation on parents’ ability to provide good care for their children, and the importance of an interagency response to children's and parents’ needs. The article also includes a discussion of problems encountered in undertaking comparative outcomes‐based research and cost‐effectiveness analyses in the social welfare field.     

The Costs of Disability and the Incidence of Poverty

Both disability and poverty have been the subject of extensive research, although relatively few Australian studies have examined the relationship between them. Most poverty studies make no allowance for the higher needs (and costs) associated with disability, while few disability studies have focused on poverty among the disabled. Yet disability often leads to greater need and this will increase the risk of poverty. This paper uses data from the 1998–99 Household Expenditure Survey to estimate the costs of disability using a ‘standard of living’ approach and uses these estimates to compare poverty rates among those with and without disability. The results imply that where there is an adult in the household with a disability, poverty rates are higher even before allowing for the extra costs of disability. After account is taken of the costs of disability, estimated poverty rates rise substantially where there is a disability present. Taking account of costs that vary with the severity of the restriction associated with the disability is also shown to make a large difference to comparisons derived from conventional poverty research.     

Student budgets and widening participation: Comparative experiences of finance in low and higher income undergraduates at a northern red brick university

Drawing on a thematic analysis of longitudinal qualitative data (n_total = 118), this article takes a “whole student lifecycle” approach to examine how lower and higher income students at an English northern red brick university variously attempted to manage their individual budgets. It explores how students reconcile their income—in the form of loans, grants, and bursaries—with the cost of living. Four arenas of interest are described: planning, budgeting, and managing “the student loan”; disruptions to financial planning; the role of familial support; and strategies of augmenting the budget. In detailing the micro‐level constraints on the individual budgets of lower and higher income undergraduates, the article highlights the importance of non‐repayable grants and bursaries in helping to sustain meaningful participation in higher tariff, more selective, higher education institutions. It also supports an emerging body of literature that suggests that the continuing amendments to the system of funding higher education in England are unlikely to address inequality of access, participation, and outcome.     

Has the Nordic Welfare Model Been Transformed?

The Nordic welfare model is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Using Denmark we show how a universal welfare state model is gradually being transformed into an emergent multi‐tiered welfare state. Whereas the Danish pension system's having become multi‐tiered in the 1990s, with private schemes – collective and individual – supplementing public schemes is well documented, scant attention has focused on more recent developments in other areas of the welfare state. This article shows how the multi‐tiered welfare state spread in the 2000s to policies for families, the unemployed and the sick. Although Denmark still offers universal coverage in core welfare state areas, the increased use of occupational and fiscal welfare as well as changes in public schemes has gradually transformed the nation into a multi‐tiered welfare state that is more dualistic and individualistic, with participation in the labour market becoming still more important for entitlement to benefits. These profound changes have taken place in such a way that although core characteristics are still in place, new structures and understandings of the welfare state are also developing. Thus classical typologies need revision, so that they include more focus on this combination of universality and institutional attachment to the labour market. Moreover, measures of what welfare comprises should include not only public but also private elements.     

From Seebohm to Think Family: reflections on 40 years of policy change of statutory children's social work in England

This paper critically reflects upon the changes in the role, tasks and aspirations of local authority social work with children and families in England since the publication of the Seebohm Report in 1968. In particular, it analyses how far the current changes related to the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme, The Children's Plan: Building Brighter Futures and the Think Family report will have the effect of either furthering or undermining the principles and ambitions set out in the Seebohm Report. It concludes by suggesting that while the aims of the current changes have much in common with those of the Seebohm Report, the roles and tasks of social workers have been recast. While social work can be seen as occupying a somewhat marginal role in the new arrangements and it functions on a much narrower terrain than that envisaged by Seebohm, at the same time its importance and contribution has been legitimated.     

Community-led initiatives for climate adaptation and mitigation

ABSTRACT

Planning for climate change is complex. There is some uncertainty about how quickly the climate will change and what the anticipated localised effects will be. There are also governance questions, for instance, who has the mandate to make decisions around the management of collective resources (like council infrastructure) and private property. Underlying these questions are issues of justice, equity and agency – who pays for the costs of adaptation and mitigation, and how do decision-makers engage with communities when what is ultimately needed is transformational socio-economic change? We use a case study in Te Awa Kairangi – Lower Hutt, Wellington, to show how a community initiative called Common Unity Project Aotearoa (CUPA) is fostering everyday practices of adaptation and mitigation amongst people who have traditionally had limited participation in more formal planning processes. We use the example of CUPA to demonstrate the significance of local community-led development initiatives for adapting to a changing climate. We argue that local government engagement with people around climate change cannot be separated from broader community development and wellbeing initiatives, and needs to be understood as longer term processes, rather than one-off project consultations.     

South Asian immigrants' experience of child protection services: are we recognizing strengths and resilience?

Ethno‐racial minority families who come in contact with child protection services face unique challenges that include different ideas about appropriate child rearing practices, possibly different definitions of child maltreatment, the possibility of racial biases and service provision that does not address their particular needs. Ethno‐racial minority immigrants encounter additional barriers to services associated with the challenges of settlement in a new cultural environment. Although considerable research has explored these issues, knowledge of the experiences of ethno‐racial families who have been in contact with child protection is limited. The current paper provides insights from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of one ethno‐racial group (South Asians) in Canada. Findings suggest a variety of reasons that families come into contact with the child protection system, and the characteristics of the sample highlight their difficult financial and employment circumstances. Themes include participants' desire to be better informed about the reasons for child protection involvement and about what they can expect from the worker and the agency. They also identified a wish for services that not only recognize their cultural diversity but also respond to the needs of the whole family. In‐home services were especially appreciated. The findings reveal the resilience and personal agency among participants that can be enhanced through strength‐based approaches to practice. Helping others, establishing community networks and developing needed services were avenues of resilience identified.     

USING BUDGET CONSTRAINTS TO ILLUSTRATE POVERTY TRAPS: THE CASE OF YOUNG PART-TIME WORKERS IN AUSTRALIA

Although much is known about the incidence of unemployment in Australia over the recent past, the causes of unemployment remain controversial. Various explanations have been advanced, some of which focus on the unemployment benefits system. The present study examines the problem of high effective marginal tax rates faced by young social security recipients wishing to engage in part-time employment, and the resultant emergence of so-called ‘poverty traps’. We examine budget constraints for unemployed eighteen year olds, both singles and couples, for part-time employment in four low income occupations; namely, brickie's labourer, public service clerk, stationhand and sales assistant. The results indicate that pervasive disincentive effects exist for young people seeking low wage employment.     

Housing,Demographic Change and the Private Rental Sector

Housing policy and provision in Australia are primarily oriented towards meeting the needs of the traditional nuclear family household. Households who cannot afford to buy their own home and are not eligible for public housing have no alternative but to rent in the private sector. Many of these households are single headed, groups, unemployed or on low-incomes. However, even in the private rental sector family households are favoured by landlords and estate agents and gain access to the better standard accommodation. Flexible and innovative policies in the public sector are urgently needed to meet the housing needs of the growing number of non-nuclear family households.     

Troubled families: vulnerable families' experiences of multiple service use

This paper draws on a small‐scale study examining the experiences of highly vulnerable families with complex and enduring needs. The previous UK government and the current government have sought to develop policy and service initiatives that target families who present high levels of need and require high cost services. However, to date remarkably little is known about family perspectives and experiences. In this paper, family accounts of their experiences are presented and it is suggested that from these come some difficult practice questions. The family data reveal evident gaps in existing practice and challenges social work to ‘think family’ in new ways. The paper explores how families understand they are understood at the point of engagement, the assumptions that are made about family knowledge, and how families share and withhold information about their needs and experiences. In the discussion, the argument is made for the development of nuanced practice capable of recognizing and working with the ways highly vulnerable families ‘do family’, and the processes that support and inhibit professional interventions.     

The 'Dole or Drudgery' Dilemma: Education, the Work Ethic and Unemployment

Before the recession, Labour ministers claimed that much unemployment in the UK was voluntary. While social policy authors have repeatedly countered such claims by stressing that unemployed people generally possess a strong work ethic and employment commitment, their accounts typically neglect the role that choosiness in job search behaviour plays in deciding individuals' employment status. Fifty in‐depth interviews with both unemployed and employed respondents exposed considerable diversity in attitudes towards ‘dole’ (being unemployed and claiming unemployment benefits) and ‘drudgery’ (doing less attractive jobs). The more educated were more likely to prefer ‘dole’ to ‘drudgery’ (this was also found using National Child Development Study survey data), yet they usually found jobs despite their greater choosiness. Those with very low educational attainment often desperately wanted jobs but could not find them due to their low employability – which might offer an explanation for the often replicated (yet paradoxical) finding that unemployed people generally exhibit a strong work ethic and pro‐employment attitudes and behaviours. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the scope for many Jobseeker's Allowance claimants to increase their net income by undertaking an unattractive job is greater than social policy authors often imply. The question of ‘who must do the least attractive jobs?’ has been neglected by both social policy academics and policy‐makers.     

Juggling and Dealing: The Creative Work of Care Package Purchasing

In conventional diagrams of the new service delivery process, assessment of need is linked to purchase by a single line or arrow; the implication is that purchase follows more or less logically and directly from assessment. This paper focuses on the complex creative work that goes on in the "space" between assessment of need and purchase of service, and the changing influences on that work. "Purchase" is deconstructed to reveal the complex processes and calculations involved, and the ways in which budgets "free" resources and markets influence the final outcome. The paper describes the effects on care package construction and purchase of changing policies, budget arrangements and financial limits; it goes on to outline the difficulties and complications in using information on unit costs in purchasing. Unit costs are only part of a complex equation in which prices are negotiated and total cost juggled in the context of budgets, financial limits, real accessibility and balanced by quality considerations. It is suggested that talk of "playing shops" and use of "off-the-shelf" services underestimates the complexity of care package construction and purchase. Micro-purchase of care services has more in common with dealing and juggling than with lifting standardized, packaged, pre-priced goods off shelves in Sainsbury's.     

Psychological Effects of Unemployment on Workers and Their Families

This paper reviews findings from a panel study of Boston area unemployed men and their families. Psychological effects of unemployment on workers and their wives are summarized, particularly for the first half year of joblessness. Family responses to job loss are also examined, including the role of the marital relationship in buffering workers' stress. Finally, policy and service implications of this research are discussed. Consideration is given not only to the mental health needs of workers, but to frequently overlooked qualities of efficacy and resilience among the unemployed.     

Work Activation Regimes and Well‐being of Unemployed People: Rhetoric,Risk and Reality of Quasi‐Marketization in the UK Work Programme

Well‐being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills). Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well‐being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well‐being – the well‐being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work – neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well‐being levels for unemployed people – what we term ‘process well‐being’ effects. Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large‐scale quasi‐marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well‐being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well‐being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes. We further relate variation in such process well‐being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which ‘thinner’ work‐first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well‐being effects for participants compared to ‘thicker’ human capital development interventions. Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely ‘thin’ activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well‐being than those who are openly unemployed. These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well‐being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing ‘black box’ activation schemes based around quasi‐marketization, devolution and New Public Management.     

CALCULATING THE TRUE COST OF PRIVATE SCHOOL EDUCATION: BASED ON A SURVEY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL FEES

The cost of a child's education should not be a mystery to consumers, yet little has been published about the true costs, and it is no simple task for parents to calculate. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the research literature that exists in relation to informing parents and educationalists alike as to the true cost of private school education. The term cost is used in the economic sense as encompassing not only the price paid for the product (school fees) but also the opportunity cost to the family in terms of what they forego in order to finance private schooling. Identifying opportunity cost is a useful means of assessing the impact of factors, other than financial, that are influential in determining whether or not private education is purchased. From a survey of South Australian private schools, we have been able to provide a detailed account of the price variations between the fees charged, as well as identifying a variety of additional ancillary charges. Based on the survey figures, we have projected the amount of money that needs to be taken out of the family budget in order to pay for a child's private schooling. At the time the survey was conducted the cost of private school education across three strata, on average, ranged from $13,400 to $42,246. We calculated that incremental family pretax incomes of between $20,303 and $64,009 would be required to fund this education. The amounts represent an opportunity cost to a family whereby money could be put to alternative uses such as home renovation, an overseas holiday, or a buffer against unexpected life events. We conclude that the outlay is substantial for many families and that greater transparency of all costs is needed for families to make informed financial plans to accommodate the overall cost of education for their children.