Professional Discretion in Welfare Services

Beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy

Tony Evans

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138256019
• eBook ISBN: 9781317075363
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Discretion has re-emerged as an issue of central importance for welfare professionals over the last two decades in the face of an intensification of management culture across the public sector. This book presents an innovative framework for the analysis of discretion, offering three accounts of the managerial role - the domination model, the street level model and the author's alternative discursive perspective. These different regimes of discretion are examined through a case study within a social services department, comparing and contrasting social work discretion in an Older Persons Team and a Mental Health Team. This innovative, theoretical and empirical analysis will be of great interest to postgraduate students and researchers in social work and related disciplines including social policy, public administration and organizational studies, as well as professionals in social work, health and education.

1 The Street-Level Bureaucracy Perspective and Discretion

DOI: 10.4324/9781315602325-1

Introduction

Lipsky’s account of discretion in street-level bureaucracies is closely related to his understanding of the relationship of managers and street-level bureaucrats. This chapter will outline this aspect of Lipsky’s theory and consider the subsequent development of a street-level bureaucracy literature. Lipsky’s analysis was well, but not uncritically, received when it was published. The contemporary reactions to Street-Level Bureaucracy will be outlined, as well as the literature that has sought to demonstrate and develop the street-level bureaucracy perspective through empirical research. These studies initially focused on demonstrating the validity of Lipsky’s account of discretion. However, recently a more critical strand has developed in this literature, which has started to raise questions about aspects of Lipsky’s analysis. The discussion will identify the claims of proponents of the street-level bureaucracy perspective that it is sufficient for the understanding of the motivation and behaviour of street-level bureaucrats (and their managers). It will then point to the need to consider wider issues, particularly the influence of professionalism—and related ideas of discretion and supervision—which raise questions about how street-level bureaucracies operate. In an examination of Lipsky’s theory, key areas for further investigation are: the way in which professional street-level bureaucrats and their managers operate; and how this conforms to and differs from the picture Lipsky presents. In the final section of the chapter I will address questions that have been raised about the continuing relevance of Lipsky’s theory in the context of the growing influence of managerialism within public services.

Lipsky's Analysis of Discretion

Discretion—the freedom in exercising one’s work role—is a central concern for Lipsky in Street-Level Bureaucracy. In the complex and chaotic world of public service, he argues, discretion is necessary to make policy work, but the need for discretion can give rise to street-level practices that undermine effective policy implementation and the organisational accountability of street-level workers. Central to his examination of discretion is the tension he identifies in the relationship between street-level workers and organisational managers.

Lipsky’s analysis of discretion in Street-Level Bureaucracy focuses on the nature and conditions of street-level bureaucrats’ work and hierarchical control over their work. His account of discretion is closely tied to his analysis of work undertaken by front-line staff delivering services to individuals and communities from large public organisations, and the particular characteristics of these types of organisation. Lipsky’s analysis developed in the context of the study of American urban politics in the 1960s and 1970s (Lipsky 1971, 1976, 1980). In the 25 years following the Second World War there was a significant expansion of public services at federal and local level, particularly in the late 1960s, with the expansion of social programmes associated with the war on poverty (Eisinger 1998). In this context, Lipsky observes that:

The public sector has absorbed responsibilities previously discharged by private organisations in such diverse and critical areas as policing, education and health. Moreover, in all these fields government not only has supplanted private organisations but also has expanded the scope of responsibility of public ones (Lipsky 1980: 6).

Within the expanded public sector professionals in health, welfare and education had become powerful groups able to achieve significant discretion in their work (Lipsky 1980). However, in the mid-70s state and city public services were facing substantial cuts in their budgets (Diner 1998). The context of constrained public services, an environment of pressing demand, concern about funding levels and programme efficiency, and political conflict (Hawley and Lipsky 1976, Kaufman 1998) gave rise to Lipsky’s understanding of street-level bureaucrats and street-level bureaucracies.

Lipsky’s aim is to move away from traditional approaches to the study of public administration, which emphasised formal structures, and to examine the day-to-day conditions of policy implementation (Bream and Gates 1999). His work builds on a strand in post-war analysis of public bureaucracies that examined the balance of control and discretion in public service work and suggested that the balance was tilted towards discretion. Prottas, a research assistant of Lipsky’s in his work on street-level bureaucracy, summarises the impact of this literature on the formulation of Lipsky’s key problem_ ‘Street-level bureaucrats make public policy as it emerges on the street level, and … they do so despite the massive mechanisms designed to control and direct their behaviour’ (Prottas 1978).

Lipsky’s explanation for this apparent paradox focuses on a picture of complex and confusing policies which, at street level, have to be interpreted, prioritised and made to work. In this context, he argues that the issue of discretion is central in policy analysis because: ‘… the routines they [street-level bureaucrats] establish, and the devices they invent to cope with uncertainties and work pressures effectively become [his emphasis] the public policies they carry out’ (ibid. xiii). In effect, he says, they become significant policy-making actors—the ‘… street ministers of education, dispute settlement, and health services’ (Lipsky 1980: 12).

The nature of the organisations within which street-level bureaucrats work is central to his understanding of their discretion. Lipsky characterises bureaucracies as public rather than business organisations and defines street-level bureaucracies as public bodies whose services are predominantly provided or allocated by street-level bureaucrats. Street-level bureaucrats are not all public service employees, but those:

… who interact directly with citizens in the course of their jobs, and who have substantial discretion in the execution of their work … typical street-level bureaucrats are teachers, police officers and other law enforcement personnel, social workers, judges, public lawyers and other court officials and many other public officials who grant access to government programs and provide services within them (ibid. 3).

Furthermore, Lipsky presents street-level bureaucracies as difficult organisations within which to work, characterised by the challenging working conditions they create for workers—conditions of resource shortages and policy confusion (Lipsky 1991). This environment of uncertainty and scarcity is placed at the centre of Lipsky’s understanding of the dilemmas and tensions that impact on street-level bureaucrats’ work and extend their discretion. According to his account, policy objectives tend to be ambitious, ambiguous, vague or conflicting, and have to be matched to resources. Working in the context of policy complexity and resource paucity that characterise street-level bureaucracies, street-level bureaucrats have to make sense of what their work involves and survive by prioritising policies, choosing between incompatible policies and ignoring impractical policies (Lipsky 1980). For Lipsky these conditions are not incidental but are fundamental to understanding street-level bureaucracy: ‘The analysis presented here depends upon the presence of the aforementioned working conditions. If for some reason these characteristics are not present, the analysis is less likely to be appropriate …’ (ibid. 28).

According to Lipsky street-level bureaucrats, unlike similar workers in other bureaucracies, ‘… have considerable discretion in determining the nature, amount, and quality of benefits and sanctions provided by their agencies’ (ibid. 13). Street-level bureaucrats are involved in dynamic work situations, where there is a need to respond to the human dimension of service. It is work made up of: ‘… complex tasks for which elaboration of rules, guidelines, or instructions cannot circumscribe the alternative’ (ibid. 15). They need discretion to respond to the unexpected and to ensure that services are responsive to individual need. Lipsky does not claim this to be the case for every piece of work carried out, but argues that, within their role, there is a recognition that situations can arise that will call for them to think on their feet and produce appropriate responses. However: ‘… possible responses are often circumscribed, for example, by the prevailing statutory provisions of the law or the categories of services to which recipients can be assigned’ (ibid. 161). The tension between the requirement to follow organisational guidelines and responsiveness to individual requirements is at the heart of Lipsky’s analysis of discretion. For him, the organisational characteristics that delineate formal discretion paradoxically create both pressures and opportunities to act beyond the street-level worker’s formal role.

In summary, Lipsky characterises street-level bureaucrats’ conditions of work as ‘the corrupted world of service’ (ibid. xiii). He talks of: ‘The ambiguity and unclarity of goals and the unavailability of appropriate performance measures in street-level bureaucracies’ (ibid. 40). Street-level bureaucrats have to work with ill-defined organisational goals and unrealistically high public expectations of the agency and its staff. Policy objectives tend to be overblown, ambiguous, vague or conflicting. The problem of policy imprecision is compounded by insufficient resources for the job. They have fragmented contact with their clients, work with people from diverse backgrounds and need to make rapid decisions, typically under conditions of limited time and information. Simultaneously, the services that street-level bureaucracies provide are under-resourced to meet demand. In this context street-level bureaucrats have to exercise discretion; they have choices to make about services and how they are delivered. They have to decide how to make policy work through exercising discretion about whom to help, which needs to meet and which policies to follow.

For Lipsky this level of discretion is a problem because it threatens policy implementation. Managers find it difficult to control and direct discretion in line with organisational goals. He emphasises the problems that managers have in controlling street-level bureaucrats, whose goals are, he argues, fundamentally different from theirs and the organisation’s. Lipsky’s analysis of this problem of control is not just in terms of managers’ ability to monitor and apply solutions but also in terms of the micro politics—the conflict and dependency that exist between street-level workers and their managers.

Street-Level Bureaucrats and their Managers

For Lipsky, street-level bureaucrats and their managers operate in significantly different ways. They have different job priorities and commitments and different values, and they use different strategies. Street-level bureaucrats want at least to make the conditions of their work as bearable as possible and, where they can, to take control of the direction of their work. In contrast, managers are concerned with implementing the policy that they are directed to put into effect, and with doing this as effectively as possible. Street-level bureaucrats are guided by their own preferences, including a desire to maintain as much discretion as possible, and tend only to follow those agency objectives to which sanctions are attached. Managers, however, have a clear commitment to carrying out policy. While managers are committed to equal treatment, workers’ commitment to procedural fairness is more ambivalent: they want to treat people on an equal basis, but they also want to adapt the rules and they bring their own concerns into play. Street-level bureaucrats and managers in Lipsky’s account are, then, in separate, antagonistic camps:

… it is a relationship best conceived in large part as intrinsically conflictual. The role of the street-level bureaucrat is associated with client-processing goals and orientations directed toward maximizing goals. Managers’ roles in this context are associated with worker–management goals directed toward aggregate achievement of the work unit and orientations directed toward minimizing autonomy (ibid. 25).

Lipsky also argues that, while they may well have different interests, street-level bureaucrats and managers work with one another, and often have to compromise to achieve their different goals as best they can. Managers have power, but it is limited in a number of ways. Surveillance and sanctions cost in terms of time and disruption. Regulation of the workforce to induce performance through the manipulation of benefits and sanctions tends to be limited by employment rights. Managers can also make work more or less interesting for individuals; but these opportunities tend to be on the margins. Managers, then, in Lipsky’s view, are: ‘… ultimately constrained by law, labor agreements, political opposition and worker solidarity from dictating decisions or otherwise compromising the role of street-level workers in determinations about individual clients’ (Lipsky 1991: 216–217). Significantly, managers also need workers to perform. If the job is not done, it reflects not only on workers but also on managers themselves. Their status as managers relies on being seen to get the job done, which in turn is largely in the gift of the workers: ‘Workers can punish supervisors who do not behave properly toward them, either by refusing to perform work of certain kinds, by doing only minimal work, or by doing work rigidly so as to discredit supervisors’ (Lipsky 1980: 25). Similarly, workers can bend and break rules, but they are also aware that managers wield power and that non-compliance, if pushed too far, could give rise to sanction: ‘Formal sanctions, although costly for managers to invoke, are also costly to workers, who thus try to avoid receiving them’ (ibid. 24).

The relationship between street-level bureaucrats and their managers is one of:

… mutual dependency. Thus managers typically attempt to honor workers’ preferences if they are rewarded by reciprocity in job performance. To a degree reciprocity will characterize all working relations; in street-level bureaucracies, however, the resources of lower-level workers are greater than those often possessed by subordinates in other work contexts. Hence, the potential for reciprocity is greater (ibid. 25).

Management control and street-level discretion are, in part, an armistice between managers and workers. However, managers also have to accept their own limited ability to control and direct street-level bureaucrats (ibid. 164). The ‘corrupted world of service’ described above affects managers as well as street-level workers: street-level bureaucracies are difficult organisations to run. Management strategies of control, such as performance measures, are difficult to put into effect in the conditions of street-level bureaucracies. It is problematic, for instance, to define what a ‘good’ service is; and there is the constant risk that imposing crude performance measures could distort service delivery: ‘There is often a fine line between inducing workers to better conform to agency policies and inducing workers to be open to fewer options and opportunities for clients’ (ibid. 164). Furthermore: ‘… street-level bureaucrats, in recognition of the importance performance measures have to limiting their autonomy, actively resist their development and application’ (ibid. 53).

Another aspect of the tension in the relationship between managers and street-level bureaucrats is reciprocity in the operation of discretion: managers allow the letter of policy to slip, provided street-level bureaucrats respect its spirit. But for Lipsky this is a ‘cold-war’ reciprocity, based on a recognition of limited power and distrust. This becomes evident in his detailed analysis of the nature of discretion in street-level bureaucracies.

Professionals and Street-Level Bureaucracy

The everyday world of public service involves conflicting priorities, cost concerns and inadequate resources and street-level bureaucrats frequently find themselves having to make sense of rules and procedures that collapse complex goals with many, often conflicting or outright contradictory aspects, paradoxically creating further confusion. Human services can also throw up situations for which policy has not yet been developed, and street-level bureaucrats are left to decide policy for themselves. Within this broad framework of policies, discretion involves being practical and pragmatic; not letting the detail get in the way of the service; abiding by the spirit, if not the lette...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• dedication
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• 1 The Street-Level Bureaucracy Perspective and Discretion
• 2 Social Services—Street-Level Bureaucracies?
• 3 Management and Professionals: Arguments and Perspectives on Discretion
• 4 Researching Discretion: The Case Study Outlined
• 5 ‘Managers’—Are They All the Same?
• 6 Senior Managers and the Remote Control of Practice
• 7 Local Managers and Practitioners: Conflict or Collaboration in Supervision?
• Conclusion: The Dynamics of Discretion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index