Digital welfare: designing for more nuanced forms of access

Abstract

The aim of many forms of digitalized welfare is to offer a personalized, holistic service that is affordable, sustainable, efficient, encouraging and leaves room for voluntary action. We argue that for these goals to be achieved, consideration has to be given both to the design of the system delivered by the welfare provider and to the ecosystem that further shapes the experience of the system. In such an ecosystem not only should state-provided welfare be considered but so too should community support, as well as alternative methods of accounting for societal contribution. In this paper, we use theoretical perspectives on access and security to ideate sketches that invoke new user experiences of welfare. These sketches reflect the importance of both designing for and understanding the ecosystem in which welfare systems are accessed, in order to articulate a different welfare ethos that can encompass both complementary and conflicting perspectives. Using the ideas of Buchanan (1992Buchanan ( , 2001a our synthesis of theories related to security with the practical implementation of digital welfare aims to shape the placement (Buchanan 1992) of digital welfare by embedding access points of different types further into the welfare ecosystem.

Emerging modes of digitalisation in the delivery of welfare‐to‐work: Implications for street‐level discretion

“…This has arguably been a key emphasis of digitalisation initiatives in several liberal welfare states. Indeed, one of the first applications of automated decision‐making in Australian welfare administration was the Online Compliance Intervention, colloquially known as ‘Robodebt’; a fully automated initiative from 2016 to 2019 that attempted to data match claimants' annual tax returns against the fortnightly earnings they declared when claiming benefits so as to detect overpayments and trigger debt recovery notices based on algorithmic calculations that have since proven unlawful (Coles‐Kemp et al, 2020).…”

Context matters: Exploring the mediated nature of digital service provision within homelessness organizations

“…Options for access and the design and governance of these spaces are important because, as the findings showed, they serve to facilitate or inhibit use of technology. By providing access to equipment, training, and support, these services can promote digital inclusion and thereby facilitate access to housing, employment, welfare benefits, and other opportunities that are increasingly only available online (Coles-Kemp et al, 2020). However, as occurs in other city spaces (Humphry, 2021), these organizations can operate both as sites of connectivity and as sites of regulation and control.…”

Universal Credit and Automated Decision Making: A Case of the Digital Tail Wagging the Policy Dog?

“…Early warnings that the default online application was not ‘grounded in reality’ were not acted upon (Hitchcock, 2012). Making and managing the claim requires an ‘ecosystem’ of resources including a functioning, internet-enabled device and reliable internet access (Coles-Kemp et al ., 2020). Home broadband and mobile data plans are expensive and the number of libraries and jobcentres where claimants could secure free internet access had decreased significantly in the wake of the government’s austerity cuts (Alston, 2019a: 14).…”