Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Biographical notes
- Preface
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Delivering services and benefits: street-level bureaucracy and the welfare state
- Part Three Agents of the state: street-level bureaucracy and law enforcement
- Part Four Embedded in society: street-level bureaucrats as public actors
- Part Five The management of street-level bureaucrats
- Part Six The promise of professionalism
- Part Seven Conclusion
- References
- Index
Three - Discretionary payments in social assistance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 March 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Biographical notes
- Preface
- Part One Introduction
- Part Two Delivering services and benefits: street-level bureaucracy and the welfare state
- Part Three Agents of the state: street-level bureaucracy and law enforcement
- Part Four Embedded in society: street-level bureaucrats as public actors
- Part Five The management of street-level bureaucrats
- Part Six The promise of professionalism
- Part Seven Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
The history of British social assistance
Social assistance, the means-tested safety net of the British social security system, has played a growing and significant role in British income maintenance provision. For most of that history, there has been a very significant discretionary element, which though a minor part of total expenditure, assumed a disproportionate amount of effort in and influence on the administration of the system, and was a major (some would argue, disproportionate) driver in the various reforms and reincarnations to which social assistance has been subjected. The British social assistance scheme demonstrates the impact of discretion on the front-line worker and on his/her relationship with management and with the public:
At best, street level bureaucrats invent benign modes of mass processing that more or less permit them to deal with the public fairly, appropriately, and successfully. At worst, they give in to favoritism, stereotyping, and routining – all of which serve private or agency purposes. (Lipsky, 1980, p xii)
The role that discretion should play in the system and how to effectively manage its use has been a focus of debate and criticism throughout the history of British national social assistance schemes. Discretion has mainly applied to the payment of supplementary weekly additions to benefits or occasional lump-sum payments. From the outset, these were regarded as integral to the system in order to keep the main rates of benefit at the minimum level while allowing officials on the ground to respond flexibly to the additional needs of some people. As the chapter shows, despite numerous attempts to contain the growth of discretionary payments, demand increased – largely as evidence emerged that benefit rates were too low to meet all basic needs and as dependence on means-tested benefits grew far beyond that originally envisaged – with the inevitable strain that this put on the administration of the system. Increasingly, those managing the system sought to reduce the ‘creative’ individual discretion (‘discretion as used’) of front-line staff and replace it with administrative discretion (‘discretion as granted’) in the form of guidance (or rules) provided by the centre, though not enshrined in law. These rules both offered officials protection ‘from conflict with clients by emphasising impersonality’ (see Chapter One) and enabled the central bureaucracy to regain control of expenditure.
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- Understanding Street-Level Bureaucracy , pp. 45 - 60Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2015
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