The marketization of activation services: a modern panacea? Some lessons from the Dutch experience

Abstract

The introduction of market mechanisms is a crucial part of the new modes of governance emerging EU-wide in order to modernize the public sector. This article focuses on the introduction of marketization in the provision of activation services. The article draws on the Dutch experience, where activation services have been provided by private for-profit companies for several years now. In the first part, the emergence of new modes of governance is put in the context of welfare-state reforms aimed at making the welfare state more activating. Then, the marketization of activation services in the Netherlands is discussed as part of a wider institutional-reform process. Next, an assessment is made, based on several empirical sources, of the alleged advantages of the introduction of market mechanisms in the provision of social services. In the conclusion we argue that the effects of marketization strongly depend on the wider institutional and social-policy context in which it is embedded.

Review Article: The Governance of Activation

“…Some studies are national case studies (Bryna Sanger, 2001;Van Berkel and Van der Aa, 2005); some adopt a comparative approach, comparing, among others, the ways in which markets were introduced, developments in the regulation of markets by the state, the nature of contracts between service purchasers and service providers, and the impact of markets on services (Considine, 2001;Bredgaard and Larsen, 2005;Struyven and Steurs, 2005;Sol and Westerveld, 2005). Most studies focus on a limited number of countries only, as these are considered to be at the vanguard of introducing quasi-markets to activation services: Australia, the UK, the US and the Netherlands.…”

User co-production of public service delivery: Effects on trust

“…This includes selecting on so-called 'hard' characteristics, such as educational background, language proficiency and work experience, but it could also involve 'soft' characteristics, such as social skills, appearance and motivation. It is thought that creaming is especially a risk when contracting out services to private companies (Van Berkel and Van der Aa, 2005). The process underlying this phenomenon could be described as market segmentation.…”

Rescaling employment support accountability: From negative national neoliberalism to positively integrated city-region ecosystems

“…Yet at heart city-region rescaling tweaks rather than fundamentally reconfigures the now widespread neoliberal paradigm of employment support that has strong traction with DWP policy makers, despite the traceability of the city-region scalar fix back to the significant shortcomings of that neoliberal employment support paradigm as seen in Work Programme as well as in the broader international evidence base (Bredgaard and Larsen, 2008;de Graaf and Sirovatka, 2012;van Berkel and van der Aa, 2005;van Berkel et al, 2011). Instead, neoliberalism's grip on England's employment support landscape can in some ways be argued to be further embedded, buttressed and indeed subsidised through these devolutionary programmes, despite their transformative progressive intent and potential.…”