From the desk to the front-room? The changing spaces of street-level encounters with the state under austerity

Abstract

The impact of recent welfare reforms and austerity measures have fallen unevenly on different regions and different household types in the UK. These changes are generally referred to as a 'withdrawal' or 'retrenchment' of the state. It is also possible, however, to argue that the state is actually extending its reach into the lives of disadvantaged or 'troubled' families. This article highlights how, in recent years, the site of government interventions into the lives of marginalised populations has progressively shifted from the public spaces of offices, and neighbourhood and community buildings, to the private, domestic spaces of the 'family'. The changing spaces of street-level encounters with the state are characterised as a shift from 'the desk' or 'the counter' to the 'front door' of the family home. The rhetoric surrounding the Troubled Families Programme is examined and some of the political and symbolic functions of the 'front-door' discourse are expounded.

Home level bureaucracy: moving beyond the ‘street’ to uncover the ways that place shapes the ways that community public health nurses implement domestic abuse policy

“…As street-level encounters for disadvantaged families move increasingly from the desk, clinic and office to the family home (Wacquant 2009, Crossley 2016, Winter and Cree 2016, this study illuminates the ways that working in this intimate space shapes the work of HVs as they deliver a 'routine enquiry' into DA. The use of discretion is clearly evident in the extent to which the policy mandate is implemented and yet this study suggests that the 'decision' of HVs to use discretion is much more nuanced than the existing literature would suggest.…”

“…The concept of the 'street' in SLB theory has been weakly problematised and normalised discourses of SLB position the 'street' as a neutral, agendered and public space. As Crossley (2016) and others have pointed out, while the implicit assumptionand focus of much empirical research is that street-level encounters happen at an office desk in a government building (Fletcher 2011), increasingly the site of government intervention into the lives of the disadvantaged families is in the home (Wacquant 2009, Crossley 2016, Upton 2016. Taking a Foucauldian approach and widening the lens beyond disadvantaged families, Winter and Cree (2016) likewise track over time the historical progression of the state into the intimate space of family homes through the practice of social work.…”

Socio‐political fracturing: Inequality, stalled social mobility and electoral outcomes

“…The emphasis on individual responsibility permeates many aspects of everyday life (Hall, , ). It impinges on private and domestic spaces of the home as much the public spaces of offices, and neighbourhood and community buildings (Crossley, ). It also transcends temporal borders, causing effects that shape individuals, families and communities not only now, but in the future (Pimlott‐Wilson & Hall, ).…”

Troubling Discourses of Poverty in Early Childhood in the UK

“…Bamfield (, p. 832) suggests that their actions were a moral imperative in terms of reducing ‘state hand‐outs to the poorest in society, lest they became trapped in a state of welfare dependency that erodes personal and social responsibility’. As a consequence of post 2010 policy, benefits and children’s services were cut ‐ particularly affecting young families and lone mothers (Crossley, ; Gillies, ). Sure Start, a flagship Labour policy aimed at reducing child poverty, offered a range of integrated services for young children and families including health, early learning and family support and free childcare and was particularly affected (West and Noden, ).…”