More Money, More Problems? Addressing the Funding Conditions Required for Rights-Based Child Welfare Services in England

Policymakers and academics continue to debate the criteria used in formulas to allocate funding to children’s services, but few studies have considered how well the results of these formulas align with rights-based entitlements and commitments after implementation. This research measured correspondence between local authority spending per child and levels of income deprivation, special educational needs, and child development from 2011–2019 to assess the extent to which funding matches local authorities’ statutory responsibilities to provide support to children ‘in need’ under the Children Act 1989. There was weak and worsening correspondence between funding and needs, especially for preventative services.

In 70 years how did the New China eliminate extreme poverty?

China is noted for remarkable reductions in rural poverty and aims to eliminate it by 2020. Achieving this outcome requires identification of the remaining poor population and a strategy that effectively addresses the causes of their poverty. This article explores the ways in which China has converted itself from the poorest country in the world in 1949 to a country in which extreme poverty is on the verge of disappearance. It examines the roles of economic growth and a a targeted combination of traditional development-oriented policy for poverty counties, villages and regions with wider minimum life guarantees and welfare services. The conclusions draw on a 2017 survey of 4,626 rural households and 13,689 individuals in 628 counties to point to some of the characteristics of the contemporary rural population.

‘This is not what I signed up for’ – Danish prison officers’ attitudes towards more punitive penal policies

A humane approach to punishment has been integral to the work of the Danish Prisons and Probation Service. However, Danish penal policy has recently taken a punitive turn. What happens when punitive policies are adopted by a penal regime built on a humane approach to punishment? To address this question, this article focuses on prison officers at Vestre prison and how they adapt to punitive political decisions and prison policies. The increased focus on security in Danish prisons is considered, together with limitations set on welfare services available to non-citizen prisoners. Examination of officers’ subjectivities at Vestre prison shows that punitive penal policies have produced an environment fraught with tensions that affect prison work, institutional culture, and the officers’ professional identity. These findings also raise questions about the shifting nature of Danish penal power.

Comparing Government Social Welfare Service Acquisition Regimes: Marketisation and Bases for Competition in Canadian and English Homelessness

When governments acquire third-party social welfare services (SWS), they create institutions of acquisition. The rules and practices that governments adopt define who is able to participate, on what basis, and how prices are determined. This paper conceptualizes the institutions of SWS acquisition, their variations, and implications, in order to contribute to a deeper understanding of the link between contracting and nonprofit commercialisation. Institutions of SWS acquisition include rules of entry, participation, and assessment. Resulting acquisition regimes can be marketised to a greater or lesser extent, and this is influential through its effect on nonprofit competition. Drawing on interviews with public servants and nonprofit staff, the paper compares acquisition regimes for homelessness services in England, a regime that closely resembles a market, and Canada, a regime which is not marketised. In contrast to their non-marketised counterparts, this paper finds that marketised SWS acquisition regimes create incentives for participants to reduce prices by loss-leading or ratcheting down service quality.

Contracting for social and welfare services : the changing relationship between government and the voluntary sector in New Zealand

<p>Ten years ago, the provision of government funding for the social and welfare services delivered by voluntary sector service providers was a simple process. In evidence presented to the Waitangi Tribunal in support of a claim by a Charitable Trust against the actions of the New Zealand Community Funding Agency heard last year, a witness who was employed by the Department of Social Welfare from early in 1988 describes the process at that time thus: The Department of Social Welfare has operated funding programmes for many years...these programmes were grant funding. That is there was no contracting nor reporting as presently known. Also they were operated on a Head Ofiice Wellington decision on the recommendation of a small team (3 or 4 people based in a Regional OfiBce Auckland).(Crown Law Office, 1994 c, 6) This simple process has, in the last decade, been replaced by a funding relationship between government and the voluntary sector which owes its origins primarily to theory emanating from the study ofthe operation of private markets and the internal organisation of firms within the marketplace. Agency theory and Transaction costs analysis, along with other theoretical perspectives from the world ofthe private business sector, have had a substantial influence upon the restructuring ofthe public sector in New Zealand during the last decade and in particular have provided the theoretical basis for the transformation of the relationship between government and the voluntary sector into one of principal and agents, bound by contractual terms and a regulatory framework for the monitoring of quantity and quality of social and welfare service outputs.</p>

Contracting for social and welfare services : the changing relationship between government and the voluntary sector in New Zealand

<p>Ten years ago, the provision of government funding for the social and welfare services delivered by voluntary sector service providers was a simple process. In evidence presented to the Waitangi Tribunal in support of a claim by a Charitable Trust against the actions of the New Zealand Community Funding Agency heard last year, a witness who was employed by the Department of Social Welfare from early in 1988 describes the process at that time thus: The Department of Social Welfare has operated funding programmes for many years...these programmes were grant funding. That is there was no contracting nor reporting as presently known. Also they were operated on a Head Ofiice Wellington decision on the recommendation of a small team (3 or 4 people based in a Regional OfiBce Auckland).(Crown Law Office, 1994 c, 6) This simple process has, in the last decade, been replaced by a funding relationship between government and the voluntary sector which owes its origins primarily to theory emanating from the study ofthe operation of private markets and the internal organisation of firms within the marketplace. Agency theory and Transaction costs analysis, along with other theoretical perspectives from the world ofthe private business sector, have had a substantial influence upon the restructuring ofthe public sector in New Zealand during the last decade and in particular have provided the theoretical basis for the transformation of the relationship between government and the voluntary sector into one of principal and agents, bound by contractual terms and a regulatory framework for the monitoring of quantity and quality of social and welfare service outputs.</p>

Contracting for social and welfare services : the changing relationship between government and the voluntary sector in New Zealand

<p>Ten years ago, the provision of government funding for the social and welfare services delivered by voluntary sector service providers was a simple process. In evidence presented to the Waitangi Tribunal in support of a claim by a Charitable Trust against the actions of the New Zealand Community Funding Agency heard last year, a witness who was employed by the Department of Social Welfare from early in 1988 describes the process at that time thus: The Department of Social Welfare has operated funding programmes for many years...these programmes were grant funding. That is there was no contracting nor reporting as presently known. Also they were operated on a Head Ofiice Wellington decision on the recommendation of a small team (3 or 4 people based in a Regional OfiBce Auckland).(Crown Law Office, 1994 c, 6) This simple process has, in the last decade, been replaced by a funding relationship between government and the voluntary sector which owes its origins primarily to theory emanating from the study ofthe operation of private markets and the internal organisation of firms within the marketplace. Agency theory and Transaction costs analysis, along with other theoretical perspectives from the world ofthe private business sector, have had a substantial influence upon the restructuring ofthe public sector in New Zealand during the last decade and in particular have provided the theoretical basis for the transformation of the relationship between government and the voluntary sector into one of principal and agents, bound by contractual terms and a regulatory framework for the monitoring of quantity and quality of social and welfare service outputs.</p>

Contracting for social and welfare services : the changing relationship between government and the voluntary sector in New Zealand

<p>Ten years ago, the provision of government funding for the social and welfare services delivered by voluntary sector service providers was a simple process. In evidence presented to the Waitangi Tribunal in support of a claim by a Charitable Trust against the actions of the New Zealand Community Funding Agency heard last year, a witness who was employed by the Department of Social Welfare from early in 1988 describes the process at that time thus: The Department of Social Welfare has operated funding programmes for many years...these programmes were grant funding. That is there was no contracting nor reporting as presently known. Also they were operated on a Head Ofiice Wellington decision on the recommendation of a small team (3 or 4 people based in a Regional OfiBce Auckland).(Crown Law Office, 1994 c, 6) This simple process has, in the last decade, been replaced by a funding relationship between government and the voluntary sector which owes its origins primarily to theory emanating from the study ofthe operation of private markets and the internal organisation of firms within the marketplace. Agency theory and Transaction costs analysis, along with other theoretical perspectives from the world ofthe private business sector, have had a substantial influence upon the restructuring ofthe public sector in New Zealand during the last decade and in particular have provided the theoretical basis for the transformation of the relationship between government and the voluntary sector into one of principal and agents, bound by contractual terms and a regulatory framework for the monitoring of quantity and quality of social and welfare service outputs.</p>