In this article, we identify the unfolding unintended consequences which flow from one instance of policy layering in Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We show how use of a causal diagram, which highlights feedback loops and emergent properties, to map complex chains of causal factors can assist policy scholars and policy practitioners to understand the likely direction of change and possible responses. In the case of Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme, our analysis suggests that the likely direction of change will work against two of the fundamental design features of the NDIS: providing participants with more choice and control, and ensuring all eligible Australians are able to access appropriate services and supports regardless of where they live. Our analysis points to the use of price regulation as the site of potential intervention because of the role it plays in subsequent feedback loops and the development of the two, unwelcome, emergent properties.

The values espoused by third sector service delivery organizations form the basis of normative claims of legitimacy. Such claims are subject to on-going debate with critics arguing that third sector service delivery organizations do not truly represent the views of those they are trying to assist or that they often fail to institutionalize their values in their relationships with service users. Using instrumental case studies of six social welfare programs in three cities in Australia, this article explores questions of legitimacy by examining whether organizational values were the same as those of service users and whether this matters in terms of services having a positive impact on service users. While research findings generally support normative claims of legitimacy, instrumental values were found to be more important than underlying ethical values or outcome values in generating positive outcomes for service users. However it is these instrumental values that are most at risk from overly prescriptive funding mechanisms.Résumé Les valeurs embrassées par les organisations fournissant le service du troisième secteur constituent la base des revendications normatives de légitimité. De telles revendications sont sujettes à un débat en cours avec des critiques soutenant que les organisations fournissant le service du troisième secteur ne représentent pas véritablement les vues de ceux qui essaient d'offrir une assistance ou qu'elle échouent souvent d'institutionnaliser leurs valeurs dans leurs relations avec les utilisateurs de services. En utilisant des études de cas instrumentales de six programmes d'aide sociale dans trois villes d'Australie, cet article explore les questions de légitimité en examinant si les valeurs organisationnelles étaient les mêmes que celles des utilisateurs de services et si cela avait de l'importance en termes de services en ayant un impact positif sur les utilisateurs de services. Tandis que les conclusions de la recherche confirment les revendications normatives de légitimité, des valeurs instrumentales ont été considérées comme plus importantes que les valeurs éthiques ou les valeurs résultantes en générant des résultats positifs pour les utilisateurs de service. Cependant, ce sont ces valeurs instrumentales qui présentent le plus de risques en ce qui concerne les mécanismes de financement consacrés par l'usage.Zusammenfassung Die Werte, für die Dritt-Sektor-Organisationen, die Dienstleistungen bereitstellen, eintreten, bilden die Basis von normativen Ansprüchen auf Rechtmäßigkeit. Solche Ansprüche sind Gegenstand einer fortlaufenden Debatte, in der Kritiker argumentieren, dass Dritt-Sektor-Dienstleistungsorganisationen nicht wirklich die Ansichten derjenigen, die sie versuchen zu unterstützen, vertreten, oder das es ihnen oft nicht gelingt, ihre Werte in den Beziehungen mit den Nutzern der Dienstleistungen zu institutionalisieren. Dienliche Fallbeispiele von sechs Sozialhilfeprogrammen in drei australischen Städten nutzend erforscht dieser Artikel Fragen von Rechtmäßigkeit, indem er...

Institutional legacies and 'sticky layers': what happens in cases of transformative policy change?

While social and public policy studies recognize the diversity of actors and processes occurring in the implementation of policy and the organization of public service delivery, analysis of the role of value pluralism in implementation remains underdeveloped. This article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between value pluralism and organizational responses to value conflict by exploring the effect of politics on the value choices of senior public servants involved in the design and implementation of Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme. Our analysis shows that politics may play an essential role in facilitating implementation of a complex social policy that contains a number of incommensurable values because successful politics allows these incommensurable values to co-exist and adaption to take place, thereby avoiding organizational dysfunction.

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