scholarly journals Discretion on the Frontline: The Street Level Bureaucrat in English Statutory Homelessness Services

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Alden
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Exercise Of Discretion

This article employs Michael Lipsky's street level bureaucrat conceptual framework to explore the exercise of discretion in frontline homelessness service delivery. It is the first to apply Lipsky's model to English homelessness services at the outset, and builds on earlier investigations which have uncovered how the use of illegitimate discretion can potentially lead to detrimental outcomes for service users affected by homelessness. This topic is particularly salient in light of the current politically austere climate, whereby statutory homelessness services have experienced an increase in service users, yet resources, if anything, are declining. Interview findings from twelve local authorities found evidence of unlawful discretion, which was attributed to a complex mesh of individual, intersubjective, organisational and central-led factors. However, the use of negative discretion was chiefly underpinned by higher level pressures around resource scarcity and strict targets.

Brokerage and Boots on the Ground: Complements or Substitutes in the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Brandt ◽  
Andrew Schrank ◽  
Josh Whitford
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Design ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Advisory Services ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Direct Delivery ◽  
Network Failures ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

There is more agreement on the need for advisory services to help small and midsized manufacturers keep up with the latest managerial techniques and technologies than there is on the optimal design of those services. This study reconfigures and reanalyzes administrative data from the American Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and draws on extensive interviews with “street-level bureaucrats” at Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, to identify and compare variation in centers’ approaches to service delivery. Centers and clients who rely on third-party providers tend to have more rather than less enduring ties, suggesting that it’s direct delivery, rather than brokerage, that is associated with one-shot deals. There is evidence also that projects generate the most impact when they help “get the relationships right” and mitigate network failures.

Why are Local Authorities Reluctant to Externalise (and Do They Have Good Reason)?

10.1068/c0419 ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Entwistle
Keyword(s):  
Service Delivery ◽  
Performance Improvement ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Theoretical Support

In vogue with the international currents of public management, the United Kingdom's New Labour government sees the outsourcing, or externalisation, of public service delivery as a key instrument of performance improvement. Evidence suggests, however, that a significant proportion of local authorities are reluctant to externalise. On the basis of fifty interviews in six case-study authorities, the author identifies five reasons for a reluctance to externalise. He further considers the degree of theoretical support for this reluctance, concluding that gaps in our knowledge—critical to ‘make or buy’ decisions—make it impossible to determine whether a reluctance to externalise is well founded or not.

No way home: the challenges of exiting homelessness in austere times

2020 ◽  
pp. 249-270
Author(s):  
Christina Carmichael
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Homeless People ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Welfare Dependency ◽  
Additional Insight ◽  
Street Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Welfare Reforms

This chapter explores the ways in which austerity manifests at the ‘street level’ for a particularly poor and marginalised population, drawing on interviews with single homeless people and practitioners living and working in homelessness accommodation projects. While existing research has assessed the impact of recent housing and welfare reforms on those at risk of or transitioning into homelessness and those sleeping rough, the chapter offers additional insight by placing focus on the implications of austerity for transitions out of homelessness. The data presented reveals the ways in which austerity-driven policies are actively hindering service users' efforts to move beyond homelessness and leaving them increasingly susceptible to longer-term cycles of instability. Increases in benefit sanctioning and conditionality, combined with cuts to homelessness services over the last ten years, have resulted in overwhelmed practitioners increasingly forced to focus on crisis management, while little or no resources are left to invest in prevention and helping users to transition out of homelessness. Meanwhile, the interviews with homeless service users and practitioners suggest that contrary to the prevailing narrative of welfare dependency, insufficient funding has impaired transitions into work.

Implementing social policy in Brazil: an inter-contextual exploration of the exercise of discretion by street-level bureaucrats

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Vicente da Rocha Soares Ferreira ◽  
Janann Joslin Medeiros ◽  
Charlotte Lyn Bright ◽  
Charles David Crumpton
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Exercise Of Discretion

Exploring Peer Support as a Strategy to Reduce Self-Stigma for Marginalised Children of Parents with Mental Illness (COPMI)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adele Parkinson ◽  
Emily Keddell ◽  
Peter Walker
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Peer Relationships ◽  
Peer Support ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Parental Mental Illness ◽  
Youth Service ◽  
Parents With Mental Illness

Abstract Many children of parents with mental illness (COPMI) experience stigma, resulting in detrimental effects and the need for support. Peer support programmes are widespread interventions, commonly providing relational, psychological and educational support. Some evidence suggests that these programmes result in positive changes to COPMI experiences of self, peers and their families. This article adds to the evidence base, presenting findings from a primarily qualitative, mixed-methods programme evaluation of a COPMI service in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Formative evaluation data were gathered from a COPMI service which supports families adversely affected by chronic and severe parental mental illness, via interviews (N = 10) and four age-differentiated focus groups (N = 24) of child/youth service-users aged eight to eighteen years, and mixed-method surveys of adult service-users (N = 32). This article reports data from child/youth service-users who participated. Findings indicate that many participants experienced stigma outside the service, and self-stigma was reduced for many due to supportive peer relationships formed during service delivery. Further understanding of the relationship between peer support and self-stigma in these programmes is needed, and how positive changes to self-perceptions might translate to other spheres. The application of socio-ecological resilience theory to findings implies that COPMI service delivery should address differential needs in relation to marginalisation and promote sustained peer relationships for those who are marginalised.

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