Selling the Unemployed: the Performance of Bureaucracies, Firms and Non‐profits in the New Australian “Market” for Unemployment Assistance

Abstract

Major changes to the organization of welfare programmes indicate the emergence of a new welfare state (NWS) model which claims to put an end to the traditional "one size fits all" ideal of universality and standardization. The stated aim of such arrangements is to improve service for the client, reduce costs for the taxpayer and lift the performance of the system as a whole. The Labor government reform of the Australian employment assistance system between  and , and the Coalition's first modifications of this scheme in , provide a means to investigate the performance of a NWS system which uses private and public agencies to provide a basic, mandatory employment assistance service. Using verified data on the comparative performance of public, private and non-profit agencies and qualitative data from a study of Best Practice among high-performing agencies, the study shows that this system produces greater service variation than the previous universal service system. Overall, the system also does better in achieving employment and education outcomes with long-term unemployed clients. However, the study shows that such outcomes differ between different classes of client and between different types of service provider. In particular, outcomes are lower for the more disadvantaged, and are higher for those who have training programmes available to support them.

Incentives and the Sorting of Altruistic Agents into Street-Level Bureaucracies

“…Considine 2000). Such private costs would make agents even less willing to sanction non-willing clients.…”

“…11 As discussed in section 3, an example of such an incentive scheme is making agent's pay dependent of his clients' labor market performances. 12 …”

“…Restricting the bonus for correct allocations to a bonus for correct sanctions only does not affect any of the main results; it merely leads to an increase in the base salary as the agents' expected bonus pay goes down. 12 The agent does not sanction ³ θ j ≥ b θ = π/v´The agent's expected utility, equation (1), changes into:…”

Support for All in the UK Work Programme? Differential Payments, Same Old Problem

“…International evidence suggests that creaming and parking by providers is widely experienced across different countries (Considine 2000;Struyven and Steurs 2005;van Berkel and van der Aa 2005;Bredgaard and Larsen 2008;van Berkel et al 2012;de Graaf and Sirovatka 2012). The literature also makes clear, however, that the detail of programme design and payment structures can play a role in either mitigating or facilitating such provider behaviours (Considine 2000;Struyven and Steurs 2005;van Berkel and van der Aa 2005;Considine et al 2011;Finn 2011Finn , 2012.…”

“…There have been significant shifts in the organization of services with the implementation of contracting out and the creation of quasi-markets to respond to the critiques of public choice theorists around claims of unresponsive 'bureaucratic' state institutions and, more recently, the desire to transfer risk away from government (Considine 2000;Bredgaard and Larsen 2008;Mythen et al 2012). These organizational reforms have been closely associated with the turns towards new managerialim and contractualism as well as shifts to 'new' governance modes involving changed relationships between the state, citizens and disadvantaged groups (Ramia and Carney 2000;Considine 2001;Struyven and Steurs 2005).…”