Regulation of Personal Social Services – TheIsraeli Experience

Abstract

The current article explores the aspects of regulatory policy in the field of personal social services. In Israel, the government sets standards, and finances and oversees personal social services, while the services themselves are provided primarily by non-governmental organizations. Based on a qualitative study we examined two questions. First, what characterizes the implementation of regulatory mechanisms in the field of personal social services in Israel? Second, how can we explain the outcomes of regulation in the personal social services in Israel? In a unique approach, we used the institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework to explore the regulatory practices implemented in community residences and hostels for people with intellectual disabilities and in after school programmes. The findings revealed that although there were implementation gaps in both cases, the IAD might improve our understanding of the nature and magnitude of these gaps. Furthermore, the insights gained may have implications for policymakers in their development of regulatory policy.Reform is about building capacity to do the old things in different ways and to discover new things that need doing (Jones and Kettle 2003: 12)

Regulating social welfare services: Between compliance and learning

“…In such a regulatory system, finding the right relational distance between the inspectors and the inspected homes is a major challenge: How can the inspector be close enough to ensure that the homes are truly committed to the goals of the YPA and promote learning and improvement, without being too close and jeopardising the integrity of the regulatory process? As mentioned, the respondents were aware of this problem, and the same issues appear in previous studies (see Lahat & Talit, ; Spiro & Fromer, ).…”

“…Given the greater reliance on non‐governmental agencies for the delivery of personal social services, the regulatory role of the Ministry of Welfare has increased significantly (Lahat & Talit, ; Spiro & Fromer, ). The regulatory systems of the Ministry were established long before contracting‐out became so widespread, and the role of the inspectors, most of whom were social workers, was developed along the lines of supervision within the social work profession (Hovav, ).…”

“…As a result, governments around the globe are struggling with the conceptual and practical issues involved in designing regulatory systems that maintain governmental control over these services, on the one hand, while facilitating innovation and professional discretion, on the other (Kröger, ). Although there is already considerable scholarly work on the rise of the regulatory state, work on the regulation of social welfare services remains limited both in the literature on social work and social welfare (e.g., Furness, ; Goodship, Jacks, Gummerson, Lathlean, & Cope, ; Munro, ) and in the literature on regulatory governance (e.g., Braithwaite, Makkai, & Braithwaite, ; Gormley, ; Lahat & Talit, ). Moreover, the existing literature rarely addresses the ways the regulatory mission is perceived and actually practiced at the street level, nor does it consider the professional dilemmas involved in regulating social welfare services (Brady, ; Brodkin, ).…”

Quality, qualifications, and the market: Procuring interpretation services in the context of the “refugee crisis”

“…Contracting (out) and price‐driven procurement have been shown to impact upon working conditions (Campbell & Peeters, ; Dube & Kaplan, ; Flecker & Hermann, ; Engström & Axelsson, ; Grimshaw et al, , p. 1; Vrangbæk et al, ), which may, in turn, affect the quality of service (Apostolou, , p. 217; Benjamin, ; Grimshaw et al, : X, 37). With a growing importance of contracting of services, public contracts play an indispensable role in setting standards (Lahat & Talit, , p. 336) and an increasingly important role as a tool in the regulation of labour (Holley, ).…”

“…Research on contracting out and public contracting of services has suggested that these developments have important implications for working conditions and the quality of services (Benjamin, ; Dube & Kaplan, ; Engström & Axelsson, ; Flecker & Hermann, ; Grimshaw, Cartwright, Keizer, & Rubery, ; Vrangbæk, Petersen, & Hjelmar, ). With the growing importance of public contracting, public contracts increasingly act as tools for defining standards of services (Lahat & Talit, , p. 336) and regulating labour standards and working conditions (Holley, ). Yet, despite their importance as a regulatory tool, little is known about public authorities' strategies to warrant decent working conditions and a high quality of services when tendering.…”