Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of Švejkism

Abstract

Recent UK government reforms have introduced a range of measures to regulate practice in child welfare, with professional work increasingly structured into formal processes embedded in information technology. This prompts obvious anxieties about the erosion of professional discretion. Using Lipsky's concept of the street-level bureaucrat, we report on an ethnographical study examining how social workers organise their practice in an atmosphere of performance management. Clear indications of attenuated discretion are revealed, reflecting the shift to a managerial model of control. Of concern is the emergence of a pattern of formally conformant behaviour in which the letter of the organisational law is obeyed but without genuine commitment. Drawing on the anti-hero of Hašek's celebrated satire, we denote this form of passive resistance 'Švejkism'. While showing up the absurdities of excessive managerial power, such behaviours are ultimately dysfunctional for the organisation; an alternative governance paradigm, based on professional values, is briefly outlined.

Opioid pharmacotherapy: Treatment, regimes, constructions and control

“…Similar observations about policy making in action have been made by a variety of commentators (e.g. Feldman, 1994;Nikander, 2003;Wastell et al, 2010). What I hope that this paper has shown, is that examining on-going professional decision-making in specific institutional settings may open up for a better understanding of the dynamics and logics of inter-professional work.…”

“…Making sense of and applying nation-and organization-level policies to individual cases takes place throughout the health and welfare practices in all western welfare regimes. Indeed, "discretion is not some incidental feature; it is fundamental to the operation of any 'viable system"' (Wastell, White, Broadhurst, Peckover, & Pithouse, 2010). Therefore, it is my contention that the ideas presented in this article are relevant not only in relation to MMT, but across human services and professional groups.…”

Child Protection and Safeguarding in England: Changing and Competing Conceptions of Risk and their Implications for Social Work

“…Not only did such systems seem to increase the range and depth of state surveillance of children, young people, parents and professionals (Parton, 2006;2008a;Anderson et al, 2009) and undermine individual and family privacy (Roche, 2008) they did not work seem to work as intended. In particular they seemed to have the effect of: deflecting front line practitioners from their core task of working directly with children, young people and parents (Hall et al, 2010); increasing the bureaucratic demands of the work (Parton, 2008b;Broadhurst et al, 2010a;2010b); and catching practitioners in an 'iron cage of performance management' (Wastell et al, 2010).…”

The implications of neoliberalism for social work: Reflections from a six-country international research collaboration

“…This uniqueness in perspective together with social work's role and response have in recent years experienced a policy 'effect' with implications for the marginalization of those who receive its services, that is, through the restriction of services (Murray, 1994), the reduced role in preventative services (Dominelli, 1996;Lombard, 2008) and the rise of managerialist supervision or management processes (Berggren et al, 2010;Marobela, 2008;Wastell et al, 2010). These features have been present in all countries, even when articulated social policy suggests otherwise.…”