Make no mistake; we are at present, as social workers, engaged in warfare. The ideals and values of social work, about which there was once some agreement by practitioners has been rent by ideological divisions from within and most grievously attacked from without by the neo-conservative, pro capitalist forces which appear to be in the ascendancy in the western world.

Doreen Gibson, in her paper, “Which Road For Social Work: The Moral Choices and Ethical Dilemmas” presented at the ISWF Conference in Stockholm in 1988 has set. out the issues rather well “As social workers one of the main assumptions we make about social work and social work education is that being a member of a profession implies shared values. Shared values are not a fact - this is merely an assumption.” [1988:11]

I am grateful to my colleagues in the Masters programme at UNSW [1989] for pointing out to me that I have been guilty of making this assumption.

In the original draft of this paper I fell into the trap of looking at the presentation from the traditional liberal orthodox view of social work, ignoring radical critiques and feminist perspectives, without acknowledging this in the paper. I am uncertain about the total value of the radical and feminist approaches. I hear what they are saying, I am however, at present, unconvinced that those approaches have “the answer” nor am I certain any longer that the traditional approach in which I have been educated provides the answer-. I prefer- to struggle with my values -for the moment and ‘feel’ my way through the minefield of this debate.

I am certain however that people come first. I recognise the equal worth, value and dignity of every human being, irrespective of race, gender, status or age. Thus my principles are egalitarian and democratic, it is ‘from this perspective that this paper is written.

If we conceptualise what is happening to the welfare state as warfare between the forces of those committed to the principles universalism inherent in the concept of the welfare state and those who seek to impose residualist policies on us all, then the strategies we adopt could well be drawn from the fields of war.

A famous German general - Clausewitz was reported to have said, “Offence is the best form of defence”. Another” famous militarist once remarked, “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace.” or in English ‘audacity, audacity always audacity’.

What I propose in this paper-, is certainly an audacious idea I propose that we attack the neo-conservative economists with their presentation of economic rationalism by using their weapons, their rhetoric: about efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability, in order to forge the bases of some “rationalisation of the service delivery aspects of welfare programmes. I propose that we infiltrate the bastion of the neo-conservative power base, the management arena, with our views about people and process as it appears at present to he vulnerable to this form of offensive. By adopting these two approaches it is my contention we can win the initial battle against these forces. We can use the strength of the neo-conservative movement for economic reform to reform our welfare delivery systems to ones which are more economically viable and efficient, whilst at the same time ensuring that they are providing holistic services to people in a way which guarantees that they are accountable to the people that are being served. By burrowing into the bureaucracy and fostering change from within, by sensitising people to each others’ needs and wants, we may yet be able to establish in this country the social solidarity which is available as an example to us all in the Scandinavian countries and Austria, countries in which the welfare state is alive and well without having destroyed the fabric of the capitalist system and without having affected the ability of the economies to be both competitive and productive in the world markets.

‘The modern economics of disequilibrium or the ‘economics of equilibrium with unemployment’ as Keynes called it, was not just a pure theoretical creation of new analytical tools. It was more deeply an answer to the practical necessity of developing tools to analyse the existing mixed unstable capitalist system corroded by economic and financial crises. What Lord Keynes actually did was to prove and . . . . convince the political leaders of the time in the West, that it is possible, through permanent government intervention supported by the advice of professional economists, to achieve full employment and more stability without resorting to radical methods of a revolutionary nature such as communism or fascism.” [Rugina, 1981:5]

“It was in the post-war years that the idea of the welfare state took root in Western societies and received its institutional form. The basic components of the welfare state may be said to be the following: full employment or at least very low rates of unemployment; a range of universal social services to cover basic needs such as income security, medical care, education and housing; and finally a set of social assistance services to deal with exceptional cases of need. Together these three gave concrete expression to the idea of collective responsibility for maintaining a national minimum standard of living as a matter of social right.” [Mishra, 1988:2]

By the 1970s the world received a real shock. The economies of the western states ran into serious trouble, a deep recession combined with inflation which could not be steered adequately through the application of Keynsian techniques. By the late 1970s the social order of a mixed economy and welfare state was in disarray.

In a report to the Club of Rome, the description of our time is not at all encouraging. “Human evolution is reaching a point where a greater cleavage now exists than that between nation and nation; one that is cutting across the very body of nations pitting class against class, race against race, the rich a the poor, the majority against the minority, and the governing against the governed” [Laszlo et al, 1977:xii quoted in Rugina, 1981:4]

Australia has not been immune from the global crises that threaten to change the very nature of human civilization in the coming decades. For those concerned with the provision of welfare services the crisis in the welfare state, much has been written in the recent literature, [Mishra, 1988; Offe, 1982; Wineburg, 1984; Lipsky, 1981; Ife, 1988; Gibson, 1988; Watson, 1983; Esping-Anderson 1983] to name, but a few.

Ife suggests that the institutional environment in which social workers will be working will be one of uncertainty where they will no longer be able to assume that altruism and compassion let alone social justice will be accepted by politicians the media and the electorate as legitimate functions for the state. [ Ife , 1988:15—16]

Social Workers have drawn heavily on the Fabian ideal of the Welfare state. This view envisages social workers as part of an integrated and institutional arrangement of programmes and services provided by the state, whose primary task is to look after the welfare of its citizens, Such an approach led to the creation of large bureaucratic structures for the delivery of services.

Do Big Structures Work?

“One of the subtler failures of the modern welfare state is the defeat of the ideal of service...’ [Lipsky, 1981:22]. Authors like Patti, and Rapp and Poertner, authors with whom I have a certain sympathy, have undertaken research which suggests that only by concentrating on client outcomes can service efficiency be enhanced.

In our current environment, “resources are chronically inadequate in relation to the tasks that workers are asked to perform. … High caseloads,  . . . frustrate workers’ human impulses to treat people as individuals.” [Lipsky,1981:22] This author will suggest that resources are in fact probably adequate, but that the way in which they are currently deployed may be one of the major causes for the feeling that resources are inadequate and that service delivery is unsatisfactory. Further it will be suggested that by means of reorganising and refocussing the deployment of resources, currently available, a more adequate service delivery capability can be made to clients, with a focus on client outcomes, thus restoring the ideal of service taught by the traditional, liberal orthodox school of social work, this being the provision of a holistic service to people. [Hamilton, 1967; Boehm, 1958; Perlman, 1957; Hollis, 1961]

Wineburg, argues that in 1984, in the USA “the human services system is changing. It is becoming more locally oriented, demanding greater community initiative in response to local needs.” [1984:26-30] It is suggested that this observation in the early l900s is more than pertinent when looking at the service delivery requirements of the Australian scene. Hadley and Hatch have also proposed that a strategy of decentralization, with an associated increase in community control is the answer. [Hadley R & Hatch S, 1981 quoted in Ife :18]

In Australia , the era of the Whitlam government from 1972 - 1975 was characterized by a spirit of innovation, experimentation and reform. One major reform for the Commonwealth government, in the area of service delivery, was to decentralize or regionalize large bureaucracies. It was felt desirable to bring these services closer to their consumers. Access to these services could thus become more readily available and at the same time they could become more sensitive to the specific needs of the microcosm of society represented by the people of the catchment area of the service.

These “decentralization” and “regionalisation” moves by various departments were accomplished by the expansion of what were previously monolithic bureaucratic structures. Smaller service delivery outlets were created and situated in the community. There was a commitment, at least in official terms, to a process of community liaison so that the needs of the service recipients could be discovered and the agency by being sensitised to these needs could respond by structuring the service delivery in a way which would meet these stated needs. There was however very little research or consultation undertaken about the requirements of the community concerning access. The development of the service delivery outlets seems to have been driven by appropriate accommodation availability and the desire by a number of politicians for the placement of services in the “heartland” of their political power. Thus, offices were often established in locations where the transport availability for potential clients to access the service was the last consideration, where the location was not in the centre of client needs, but was situated for politically visible reasons in the town which represented the centre of the ruling politician’s electorate.

Attempts were made to coordinate the boundaries of these services with state and local government service delivery points by a Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD), but these failed, for a variety of reasons not the least of which was the inability or unwillingness of government Departments to coordinate their activities. Thus, by the 1980s a plethora of agency outlets had developed with overlapping boundaries in the Commonwealth, state, local government and voluntary spheres. This scenario, of itself, foreshadowed inefficiencies for service delivery.

The scene was compounded by the “rationalization” and focusing of services, which occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s whereby local community groups were provided with grants to provide services specifically targeted to a variety of local geographic or politically sensitive groups. (The provision of Grant in Aid funding to local migrant groups, after the Galbally Report, being a case in point). Each of these groups and funded agencies then acquired a vested interest in providing a service to the clientele for which it had been set up and demanding allocation of more and more resources to its services as it pointed out the “insensitivity” of the government bureaucracies to its specific client groups. A reaction to this criticism then led to those bureaucracies expending more resources in “sensitising” their operations to those groups which claimed that they had an inequality of access. Thus, migrants, aboriginals, the handicapped and a host of other groups were “catered for” by the development, in bureaucracies, of specialist sections aimed at enhancing service provision for these groups.

It is not possible in this paper to explore this situation in depth. Suffice it to say that by the mid 1980s not only was there a patchwork quilt of services in the community for all sorts of groups, but that each of these services could, by virtue of its mandate and the need for continued funding, only provide a partial service to the total range of difficulties presented by clients.

It is suggested that this has resulted in a service delivery method, characterised by the catch phrase, “assessment and referral” which in essence is short term, very narrowly focused, crisis oriented work, and then, referral to another agency which could deal with some (or one) of the other difficulties expressed by a client to a worker.

In essence, what this service delivery standard has meant for members of the community, in which services are located, is that there are indeed service provider agencies, at least in metropolitan areas, relatively close to their places of residence. These agencies can provide a very limited service, defined by the strict parameters of their mandates, and a referral service to other agencies which can/might be able to assist the client with other aspects of his/her difficulties. In order to obtain a holistic service, the typical client, may need to tell his/her story a number of times to a variety of workers with differing levels of skill and mandate, and is required to develop a series of relationships with workers and physically travel from agency to agency seeking help. For most workers who have been trained to look upon their clients as total functioning entities, this partialisation of the person, rather than his/her problems, is usually quite frustrating and in many instances, is at least one of the causes of the phenomenon called “burnout”. What is often not realised is that a similar process of frustration seems to occur for the clients who have to wander from agency to agency seeking services. It would be interesting to speculate on the incidence of an as yet un-named phenomenon which might be called, “client burnout”, where clients no longer seek help as they have given up trying to find their way through the maze of these supposedly accessible and responsive services.

The social work literature of the traditional liberal orthodox views of social work (see page 3 above) suggest that people are whole entities and that services provided to them are generally most beneficial when they are provided in a holistic way. One aspect of successful service delivery is in the nature of the interaction between the worker and the client. It can only be suggested that the greater the number of interactions required, the greater the chance that a full service is unobtainable and the greater the risk of unsatisfactory interactions. As clients are referred from one agency to another there is, undoubtedly, duplication of effort and workloads increase.

In the current era, when governments are displaying a fetish for importing management terminology from the private sector into the public sector, the rhetoric is redolent with phrases calling for “efficiency, effectiveness and accountability”. Budgetary problems in the economy combined with a neo-conservative approach to the welfare state have lead to a review of the allocation of total resources for the welfare sector, often disguised by the rhetoric of “targeting” resources to the needy. In essence there has either been an increase in total resources allocated, or a maintenance of the existing dollar values, but these are spread ever more thinly across an increasing number of providers. Thus while “the welfare state attempts to ensure satisfactory standards of living for its citizens, ... some critics complain that all it does, and all it can hope to do, is aim for a situation that focuses on adequacy rather than equality.” [Graycar, 1980:233]

Wineburg states that, public agencies, the major providers of services in a community services system, in this era of fiscal restraint, must concentrate on providing mandated services. Their efforts need to centre on efficient management of their operations. They need to look inward to find cost cutting measures. Public agencies have been forced to manage caseloads with less money, while private agencies have been dividing their efforts between raising money and delivering services. In time, the community human services system may become less comprehensive and more selective in the range of services offered and the type of client served. [1984]

“The possibility of personalized assessment becomes submerged in the need to process the work. ... Workers find that the best way to keep demand within manageable proportions is to deliver a consistently inaccessible or inferior product. Public programs often cannot charge fees, but they can set “prices” by inflicting indignities, such as long waits... A worker who provides superior service will be rewarded only with additional clients [Lipsky, 1981: 22]

This perception can be exacerbated by the fact that coincident with the reduction in funds for any given agency, there is a growth in social problems. We can realistically expect the needs of the elderly to increase and come to the fore over the next fifty years. The reported cases of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, to name but a few of the social problems which have increased dramatically over the last few years require an injection of funds to keep pace with the needs for service delivery. Service demand, 1 give rise to heightened lobbying by special interest groups, .... will compel both legislators and providers to seek private sector money and technical help to manage problems at the community level.” [Wineburg, 1984:27]

One suggestion which may be made for the future of service provision is that agencies need to be not only available locally, be easily accessible, but should also provide more comprehensive services in one setting. “The successful transition from today’s system to one that is administratively small, approachable, and accountable will be difficult.” [Wineburg, 1984:27]

The Swedish welfare system suggests at least one approach which takes into account a different perception of the welfare state to that which is practised generally. Gösta Esping-Andersen suggests that the welfare state will need to develop a concept of “social solidarity” such as that available in the Nordic countries in order to survive. [1983:28] “The principle of “social solidarity” means a collective responsibility for the fate of each individual. It directly clashes with the old doctrine that each individual must be responsible for his own happiness and misfortune. Instead a commitment to social solidarity presupposes that we are all mutually dependent on each other, and that rather than helping the invisible hand, Individual self-interest and egoism often block the achievement of collective welfare. Solidarity means that basic human needs have an equal claim on the national wealth, and we are all obligated to pay the necessary costs that such a mutually shared responsibility requires. Politically, social solidarity is the key to the welfare state’s broad popular support. Where solidarity is genuine, it is immune to tax revolts and electoral backlash.” [Esping-Andersen, 1983:28-30]

This theme is echoed also in the writings of Alex Robertson who states that “In Schottland (1967) term, a welfare state is a “legal state”, in which entitlement is guaranteed by statutory rights. It is thus an essentially administrative entity.” He goes on to differentiate this from what he calls, “A welfare society .... a social system in which welfare assumptions are an organic part of everyday life.” [1988:222]

The Scandinavian countries have probably gone further than any other group in developing universal programs, both in public services and income supports. All citizens, in those countries receive the same basic pension, regardless of their contribution. The distribution of these basic pensions and any supplementary benefits is arranged by a responsive political board comprising elected officials from the local “commun” which might be equated with local municipal councils in this country. These officials are advised by social workers who operate in large, multi purpose centres situated in the middle of the municipality and which operate with multidisciplinary teams of workers providing holistic services which embrace medical and welfare services alike. The provision of income security is enhanced by the provision of services that facilitate workforce re-entry and rehabilitation of those that are ill, infirm or disabled. A comprehensive system of income security, combined with these services insures and shelters workers against life crises and the risks of change. Workers thus welcome innovation in their industries and this helps promote productivity and thus boost economic growth. The Scandinavian countries have one of the lowest rates of unemployment in the world, and a continued rate of economic growth and competitiveness in the marketplace.

Suggestions in Australia for multidisciplinary work teams in welfare service delivery settings need to learn the lessons which are available by examining the Community Health Centre programs. In these settings, multidisciplinary teams were set up to provide service delivery of both a preventative and reactive kind for the members of the community in which they were located. Their effectiveness was however undercut by the fact that instead of utilizing the varying skills of the staff in the centres which came from their varying professional backgrounds there was an attempt to “multi-skill” the staff. This resulted in deficiencies of service across all the professional areas concerned. The very nature of the varying professional skills of doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, physiotherapists etc require that they not be diluted by attempting to multi-skill the staff who have specialities to offer to the clientele of the agency. Indeed, it could be argued that one of the strengths of such multidisciplinary teams comes from the differing perspectives that can be brought to bear on the difficulties that are presented by a client. By being located under one roof and by being part of one agency the client is enabled to receive a diversity of assistance while the professionals offering such assistance are empowered In their tasks by being able to consult with colleagues across a range of professions about the problems of the client. Data about the client is held in a single resource bank of information and is thus accessible to each of the specialist service providers without any inconvenience to the client. One worker, can become the caseworker for an individual client and can assist that person to receive specialised services from other members of the team as their skills are required, while maintaining for the client a continuity of professional relationship which the literature suggests is desirable.

Naturally, these services need also to be accountable to the local communities in which they are set up and not to just some large bureaucracy. However the change has to begin somewhere and this author would suggest that it is beginning in the larger bureaucracies already.

We can see the beginnings of this trend, albeit slowly, in the Commonwealth government services in the new labour market programs like the JET scheme and NEWSTART, in changes to the provision of income security related provisions like the Child Support Scheme. In each of these programmes there is a need for a number of government Departments and their staffs to cooperate in the delivery of services to the identified client groups. There is as yet no decision to amalgamate the services and thus reduce the overall overheads in administration, but this author is convinced that over time the rationality of this approach will become both self evident and made necessary by the economic realities. It will involve major upheaval to the public services as we know them in this country. The need for administrative staff will diminish as administrations are made more efficient with increased computerization of paperwork related activities and by the amalgamation of a variety of services. In addition, as service delivery departments amalgamate their services there will need to be a refocussing of their goals and objectives to a more client oriented approach in which the client is treated as a whole entity. Services will be made available to local communities by means of small teams of service providers who are highly mobile, especially in the rural environment and for whom the administrative work will be conducted in highly automated work offices to which they are linked by means of modern technology. It is also hypothesised that for the development of these locally based teams of workers to be accepted and valued in the community there needs to be accountability for their service provision back to the community that they are servicing. This may take the form of community councils which can be part of the management teams of the locally based service outlets.

“Social Work should encourage the participation of citizens at every level. The strength of our practice should lie in local community initiatives. Popular participation should be maximised and people should be encouraged not only to help themselves but to help others.” [Gibson, 1988:17]

The future is by no means certain. If e certainly suggests that, “the legitimacy of welfare state is likely to come under increasing questioning in the coming years, and the ‘big versus small debate will be an important part of this question, and one that social workers must address. [1988:18] Judith Healy in her paper, “Packaging the Human Services, says, “multiservice centres or one stop welfare shops are geographically packaged local services which have , generated considerable interest.” [1988:329] She provides evidence of their success in at least one Australian example in South Australia . However, she does then go on to say that this program was successful largely due to the push provided for it by one politician. Ms Healy then offers the comment that “The saga of the human services in the 1980s shows that there is no one prescription for restructuring which has been carried out in the pursuit of more coherent policies, more efficient administration, and better services. Staking out a larger policy and service field reduces fragmentation, but boundaries always intersect and amalgamations do not obviate the necessity for interagency coordination. New agencies are usually based on more than one organising principle as one alone constitutes a shaky base, whether it is people based services which stretch resources and skills thinly or local services which encounter administrative anomalies and equity problems.” [1988:329]

Ife suggests that “the social worker of the future will need inspiration and vision, and the courage and imagination to formulate and articulate alternative, and often radical, solutions to problems, at individual and structural levels.” (If e, 1988:21] The suggestions of this author are indeed radical. They involve decisions which will, in essence require the removal of whole groups of public servants who have a tendency to over govern us. Indeed it would probably be fair to say that the concepts envisaged here would almost require the removal of one whole tier of government. Is it feasible, is it likely? Who knows, all that I can say is that the suggestions are desirable.

The suggestions proffered by this author are incremental and meant for the transient phase while the argument about the welfare state is ongoing. For the future of the welfare state, a combination of the social solidarity concept as enunciated by Esping-Andersen and the words of the charter created by the Annual Conference of the Economics Society held at Harvard Business School of Economics in 1980 is suggested. In essence it suggests that,” for western society what is needed is social liberalism, modern capitalism reformed and cleaned of all negative, unstable elements so that the following goals may be achieved:

Personal freedoms shall be complete for all citizens since social justice or equity shall become a common good;

full opportunities for employment for everyone who wants to work shall be provided without the necessity of minimum wage laws or government deficit spending;

price stability shall be reached without the need of today’s public policy that tinkers with the manipulation of interest rates or the supply of money, including taxation;

the public budget and the private budget shall be balanced through the functioning of the system whereby the private sector is completely separate from the private sector;

the balance of payments shall be exposed to neither cumulative deficits nor surpluses but be in equilibrium with natural adjustments;

the growth and development of the national economy shall be balanced and will correspond with the wishes of the people and the available resources and not to more or less arbitrary decisions by modern banks and government;

the possible fluctuations in the economy and its finances shall be reduced to simple finite adjustments inevitable in real life.” [Rugina, 1981:39—40]

© Peter Garas

1989