ABSTRACT
Responsibilities and managerialisation of welfare services The managerialisation of welfare services is recognised as a key challenge for welfare workers, as it affects their duties and responsibilities (Annandale 1996; Banks 2004; Henriksson et al. 2006; Juhila 2009: 300; Le Bianic 2011: 804; Chapter 2 of this volume). The managerialisation has meant the introduction of ideas from the private sector, meaning competition and contracts for services that focus on measurable outputs and outcomes, efficiency and effectiveness (Rajavaara 1993; Clarke and Newman 1997; Harris 2003; Juhila 2006; Connell et al. 2009; Banks 2013: 588). These changes have identified workers as “being personally held accountable for their own decisions and actions” (Le Bianic 2011: 804). For example, social workers are made responsible for “running the business” (Harris 2003: 66), but also they are “to be managed in the pursuit of government’s policy agendas”; this has led workers to consider whether they are “doing the right things” or giving enough effort (Harris 2003: 182-183). Workers have faced demands to keep within budgets and to carry out productive, cost-effective, preventive or rehabilitative work (see Chapter 2). Related to this, workers are also increasingly required to produce quantifiable outcomes, and to be able to demonstrate they have followed and documented their performances, their tasks and certain procedures (Martin and Kettner 1997; Banks 2004: 152-153; Juhila 2006, 2009; Saario and Stepney 2009; Le Bianic 2011). This is called the new accountability (Banks 2004, 2013; Martin and Kettner 1997). Performances and outputs are more and more indicated via documents and information technology-based systems (Postle 2002; Parton 2008; Burton and van den Broek 2009; Juhila 2009: 301; Räsänen 2012; Saario 2014). It has been argued that, in particular, the welfare services contracted out to third-sector or private organisations face the demands of “performance measures” (Banks 2011: 11). The changes in welfare services have meant “managerialist responsibilization of grass-roots level workers” (see Chapter 2). Responsibilisation is strongly associated with managerialism because it aims to render subjects responsible for tasks that previously would have been the duty of a state agency, or would have not even been recognised as a responsibility (O’Malley 2009: 277-279). The responsibilisation of workers can be seen to take place in two ways. First,
traditionally workers can be seen as the subjects of responsibilisation where it is their responsibility to make their clients more responsible (e.g. Liebenberg et al. 2015) and to re-educate them (see Chapter 2). Second, workers can be seen as objects of responsibilisation where they themselves are made increasingly responsible for the contents and outcomes of services they deliver, as well as for assessing clients and delivering documents for administrative purposes (e.g. Le Bianic 2011). In other words, in the process of responsibilisation, welfare workers are both subjects and objects of responsibilisation, while state and local authorities become less involved in everyday work (see Chapter 2). Thus, grassroots level workers are faced with balancing the demands of efficiency and the needs of their clients (Liebenberg et al. 2015: 1008). It has been argued that the possibilities for professional discretion, e.g. having a command of the use of time and contacts with clients and the contents of work, have been reduced due to new managerialism requirements (Harris 2003: 74-75). Le Bianic (2011: 822) argues that as workers face the demands of certifying, verifying and validating certain facts or events, their expertise is characterised as being more “official” than discretionary. According to Brodkin (2008), this is problematic, particularly in social welfare work, where discretion is an essential part of the client-worker relationship. She notes how performance management may have unintended consequences for organisational performances, as although it may give the appearance of transparency and the illusion of accountability, in reality it obscures the full understanding of how the work is actually done in agencies, and what the real content and quality of the work is (Brodkin 2008: 323, 332). Hence, Brodkin (2008: 331-332) calls for research that examines how policies are produced and experienced in everyday practices (see also Hjörne et al. 2010). This resonates with the ethnomethodological idea of learning “seen, but unnoticed” features of talk and action (Garfinkel 1967: 41, 180).
