Transparency in Social Work: A Critical Exploration and Reflection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jochen Devlieghere ◽  
Philip Gillingham
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Service Users ◽  
New Words

Abstract Social work is a mostly discursive practice, comprised of the verbal and written interactions between service users, social workers, social work managers and supervisors and numerous external agencies. The words used to describe service users and service delivery are therefore important. These words change over time, and new words come into use. With the introduction of New Public Management, new concepts and ideas were introduced to social work service delivery and practice and new words became embedded in the social work lexicon. One of the new words that emerge in both the authors’ research with social work agencies is ‘transparency’. In this article, a critical thematic analysis of the meanings of transparency as it is used in recent social work research literature and commentary is presented. Transparency is explored in relation to how it is used, when it is used, by whom and in relation to what (and who), from the macro-level of social work agencies and governments to the micro-level of individuals as practitioners and service users. In problematising transparency, a rationale for future research is proposed about what transparency means, and could mean, in the context of social services provision and, in particular, for service users.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing innovation management development through organizational learning in the public service: any lessons for developing states?

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-275
Author(s):  
Lere Amusan ◽  
Oluwayemisi Adebola Oyekunle
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Learning ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Management Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
New Public

The present economic realities, the effects of globalization, the thirst for innovation and the public’s demand for improved services have led many developing states to review their approaches to service delivery. Most public service managers and professionals spend most of their time dealing with the day-to-day pressures of delivering services, operating and reporting to senior managers, legislators and agencies. They have little or no time to think about innovation, which would ease the pressures and burdens of service delivery. The intention of this paper is to point out the fact that capacity building is the bedrock of new public management development. This paper proposes that innovation management could be used as a form of organizational learning capability in challenging the maze of diplomacy and negotiation with experienced multinational extractive industries for the benefit of developing states. This could be achieved through excellent public investments and nurturing capability, from which they execute effective innovation processes, leading to new service innovations and processes, and superior service performance results. To achieve this objective, extensive literature on innovation management and organizational learning was consulted and the need for future research. In trying to unpack the discussion in the paper, the New Public Management Theory (NPMT), which is a pro-private sectors human resources management is proposed, though other available theoretical positions are explored taking into consideration the lapses entrenched in NPMT. Keywords: innovation, NPMT, learning culture, public management, developing states, development. JEL Classification: O10

New Public Management, migrant professionals and labour mobility: possibilities for social justice social work?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Baines
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Study Data ◽  
New Public ◽  
Unpaid Labour

Social work labour is increasingly mobile and global, as are neoliberal policy and management models such as New Public Management. These global processes overlap with local contexts to create and limit possibilities for social-justice-directed social work practice. Drawing on qualitative case study data collected in Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand, this chapter: 1) briefly sketches the history of colonialism and immigration that shaped, and shape, these four countries; 2) discusses the standardising influence of New Public Management and managerialism on social work practice possibilities in the four countries; analyses, in particular, the increasing use of immigrant ‘volunteer’ labour and other forms of unpaid labour, including student placements and internships, as a response to ongoing under-funding of social services and policies of ‘permanent’ austerity; and 3) explores implications for practice and possibilities for liberatory social work practice.

Resisting Neoliberal Social Work Fragmentation: The Wall-to-Wall Alliance

Social Work ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-345
Author(s):  
Roni Strier
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Services Delivery ◽  
Welfare Expenditures

Abstract Worldwide neoliberal policies are transforming the landscape of social work. Studies have shown that these policies increased social workers’ caseloads, regulated welfare expenditures, impaired public services’ capabilities to attend to the needs of growing demand, transformed social services delivery by implanting new public management methods, and often also worsened working conditions and deteriorated the professional status of social workers. Moreover, these policies have raised both poverty and inequality levels and left their negative marks on social work education, by prioritizing academic disciplines more attuned with the needs of neoliberal regimes. This article seeks to encourage schools of social work, social workers in the social services, and people living in poverty to challenge the harmful impact of this context by engaging in meaningful alliances focused on the fight against poverty and social exclusion. This article presents a long-term partnership project between a school of social work, local public social services, and groups of active clients, to tackle the issue of poverty in Israel. The article describes the project, introduces the theoretical and methodological principles, analyzes achievements and challenges, and finally discusses the potential contribution of such partnerships for the future of the profession.

The Moderating Role of Stakeholder Involvement in the Relationship Between Strategic Planning And Service Delivery

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 2451-2464
Author(s):  
Bahati Keranga ◽  
Martin Ogutu ◽  
Zachary Awino ◽  
Winnie Njeru
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Relationship

In keeping with the New Public Management dispensation, state corporations in Kenya have taken up strategic planning with a view to effect reforms for improved service delivery. New Public Management particularly advances a customer-centric approach to public administration for improved service delivery, with the public, who are the recipients of public service, as key stakeholders in public administration. Despite this, service delivery in the Agribusiness sub-sector in the country is riddled with inadequacies highlighted by among other complaints, unpaid produce supplies, dwindling finances, slumped agricultural extension services and low produce prices. Against this backdrop, the study set out to establish the effect of strategic planning on service delivery and assess how stakeholder involvement influences the relationship between strategic planning and service delivery among agribusiness state corporations in Kenya. Grounded on the New Public Management and Stakeholder theories, the study adopted the positivism paradigm and the descriptive cross-sectional research design. Targeting 73 state corporations pertinent to agribusiness in the country, primary data was collected by use of a structured questionnaire with institutional heads as the units of observation. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were then employed in data analysis. It was established that strategic planning has a significant positive influence on service delivery. Stakeholder involvement was however found to not have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between strategic planning and service delivery. This was attributed to the technocratic approach in the formulation of the strategic plans among state corporations and the numerically limited nature of most stakeholders in state corporations represented in the boards of directors. Following a significant direct effect of stakeholder involvement on service delivery among Agribusiness state corporations in the country, state corporations are implored to involve stakeholders in strategic planning and observe meaningful participation, communication and dispute resolution in the engagement.

scholarly journals Social services departments: success or failure?

Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Terry Bamford
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Care Management ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Child Deaths ◽  
Security Funds

Social Services departments, created after the 1970 Local Authority Social Services Act, survived for nearly half a century. Their ability to meet the vision set out in the Seebohm Report was compromised by curtailment of expansion after the financial crisis in 1975. Their reputation was damaged by a number of widely reported child deaths in which social work was seen as passive and ineffective. Severe criticism followed when they were viewed as over active as in Cleveland and Orkney. As a result social services were seen as toxic in deprived communities. Despite winning responsibility for community care in the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, departments suffered, first, from the requirement to spend the bulk of transferred social security funds in the independent sector and secondly from the prolonged squeeze on local government spending. The potential of care management for innovation and empowering service users was never fully realised.

scholarly journals Brottsoffer i indikatorland – Öppna jämförelser inom socialtjänstens brottsofferstödjande arbete

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta Agevall Gross ◽  
Verner Denvall ◽  
Cecilia Kjellgren ◽  
Mikael Skillmark
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Programme Theory ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
National Board ◽  
New Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Victim Support ◽  
Support Work

Crime victims in Indicatorland – Open comparisons in the social services’ work with victim supportSince the 90s there have been extensive changes in the public sector, such as rationalization and increasing demands for documentation and review. The changes have also affected the social services’ victim support work that has increasingly been subject to various forms of regulation, such as requirements for monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance. This article aims to examine one of the monitoring systems applied in the victim support work: the instrument of open comparisons. This article is based on an exploratory study of the local organization of crime prevention in two municipalities and analyses how the processes of open comparisons are organized at local, regional and central levels. The empirical data consists of documents such as legal sources and handbooks from e.g. the National Board of Health and Welfare and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, as well as documents obtained locally in the two municipalities. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with professionals working on different organizational levels. Analytically the study has been inspired by programme theory, which made it possible to concentrate on clarifying the operational idea in which open comparisons are based and capturing the consequences in the two cases. The study shows that open comparisons have been implemented without support from existing research. However, strong normative support for open comparisons exists within governmental agencies and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. They are included as one of many elements of New Public Management and result in changes in the victim support work. In contrast to present visions, the performance is not affected to any significant extent. In contrast, a comprehensive administration is created, where employees of municipalities are supposed to collect data, register information and analyse the results generated by the open comparisons.

Radical Hope

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Krumer-Nevo
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Critical Social Work ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Impact

This book describes the new Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP), which was developed in Israel through intense involvement with the field of social work in various initiatives. The paradigm was adopted in 2014 by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Services as a leading paradigm for social workers in social services departments. The book draws from the rich experience of the implementation of the PAP in practice and connects examples of practice to theoretical ideas from radical/critical social work, critical poverty knowledge, and psychoanalysis. The PAP addresses poverty as a violation of human rights and emphasizes people’s ongoing efforts to resist poverty. In order to recognize these sometimes minor acts of resistance and advance their impact, social workers should establish close relationship with service users and stand by them. The book proposes combining relationship-based practice and rights-based practice as a means of bridging the gap between the emotional and material needs of service users. In addition to introducing the main concepts of the PAP, the book also contributes to the debate between conservative and cultural theories of poverty and structural theories, emphasizing the impact of a critical framework on this debate. The book consists of four parts. The first, “Transformation”, addresses the transformational nature of the paradigm. The second, “Recognition”, is based on current psychoanalytic developments and “translates” them into social work practice in order to deepen our understanding of relationship-based practice. The third, “Rights”, describes rights-based practice. The fourth, “Solidarity”, presents various ways in which solidarity might shape social workers’ practice. The book seeks to reaffirm social work’s core commitment to combating poverty and furthering social justice and to offer a solid theoretical conceptualization that is also eminently practical.

E-Value Creation in a Government Web Portal in South Africa

2011 ◽  
pp. 384-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blessing M. Maumbe ◽  
Wallace J. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Service Quality ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Government Information ◽  
Web Portal ◽  
New Public ◽  
Citizen Service

By the end of 2005, an emerging era of e-government had arrived in South Africa with the promise to transform public service delivery and the relationships between government, business and the citizens. E-government has been perceived as the second revolution in public management after the new public management of the 1980s (Saxena, 2005; Teicher, Hughes, & Dow, 2002). The advent of e-government information and services globally has brought increasing focus on the need to develop user-oriented quality Web portal services. Prior to this time, governments paid little attention to citizen service quality issues (Teicher et al., 2002).

scholarly journals How Practices of Managing Partnerships Contributes to the Value Creation—Public–Social Partnership Perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4816
Author(s):  
Aldona Frączkiewicz-Wronka ◽  
Martyna Wronka-Pośpiech
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Public Value ◽  
Social Partnership ◽  
The Public

In this paper, the authors aim to answer the question of which model of public management—Public Administration, New Public Management, or Collaborative Public Management—is conducive to achieving better results in the public-social partnership. We understand public–social partnership as an activity undertaken in collaboration between organizations operating both in the public and social sectors. We also claim that Collaborative Public Management fosters sustainability in partnerships and should therefore be preferred in partnerships that are focused on delivering social services. In particular, we aim to find out how management practices that are used in the public-social partnership contribute to the co-creation of public value. The article brings together theoretical insights and empirical data. First, we integrate insights from different strands of literature. Next, empirical data are derived from two main sources: first, a specific case of the public-social partnership established by 18 institutions and organisations, followed by quantitative research that was conducted in 173 partnerships in Poland. Based on the presented case study, analysis of the survey results and in-depth interviews (IDIs) conducted with the 18 leaders of the organisations constituting the partnership, the observed pattern revealed the dominance of the Collaborative Public Management model contributing to the success of the partnership. It was also identified what actions were taken by the manager of the partnership in order to maintain links between the partners, build trust, and win their support and legitimisation in public space—all of which are necessary to create public value, which in turn contributes to the sustainability of the partnership.

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