CHALLENGES TO SOCIAL POLICIES Pedro Hespanha Introduction Social policies are intervention instruments developed by the state to provide for the wellbeing and social protection of citizens and include actions to prevent social risk or to resolve existing social problems. In the case of the poor, social policies cover a wide range of problems and aim to respond in ways which ensure minimum standards of wellbeing. Although the range and effectiveness of these policies varies greatly from one society to another, in general the aim of meeting minimum social needs has failed to come up to expectations. In the case of Portugal – possibly with the exception of basic education and the social insertion income scheme - it cannot be said, in all honesty, that minimum social entitlements exist. They do not exist in many areas such as housing, welfare, employment, transport. Health is a very problematic area in this respect since, despite the existence of a universal National Health Service, in most cases the poorest members of society do not benefit from prompt, quality care. Social policies targeted at the poorest members of society are implemented by the social services, characterised by benefits that are difficult to enforce and a low budget. Most of these services are run by voluntary non-profit organizations in exchange for agreed financial transfers. Some of these organizations, such as the Misericórdias, have a long history of helping the poorest members of society and are therefore able to exert considerable pressure on the state to delegate powers to combat poverty to them. Finally, measures designed to fight poverty are increasingly being developed through projects financed by European programmes or other external sources of funding. Unlike the current work of the bureaucratic social services, project-based actions are characterised by their experimental nature and the fact that they operate within a limited time and space and are normally managed by partnerships between public and private institutions. Within this organisational framework, it is important to analyse the relationship between professionals and the policies they implement, as well as the relationship between professionals and institutions with regard to the implementation of these policies. One initial observation that should be made prior to our analysis concerns the ambiguous status of social policies regarding their mission to reduce inequality. It is known that one of the main problems of social policies nowadays, and a source of great disillusionment, lies precisely in the fact that there is a huge gap between their stated principles (the rhetoric of solidarity and emancipation) and the practical implementation of measures (the placebo effect, regulation of the poor, workfare). Moreover, there is a feeling that reducing inequality and fighting poverty are minor concerns for the state and that society itself, through its elites and leaders, is not sufficiently committed to reinforcing these objectives and bringing pressure to bear on ending the causes of poverty. Nevertheless, changes have been introduced that are aimed at improving policies. Charges of inefficiency and the generation of dependency have led to the emergence of new forms of policies, either in combination with old policies or as a replacement for them. Essentially, the new generation of social policies favours social integration rather than subsidising risks and includes: i. the active involvement of beneficiaries in planning and choosing programmes rather than their passive submission to actions decided by professionals; ii. personalised rather than standard forms of assistance; iii. joint responsibility on the part of the provider and the beneficiary for the implementation of programmes; iv. decentralised planning of social programmes; v. partnerships with local institutions for the management of decentralised programmes; vi. an approach based on proximity rather than distant solicitude; and vii. flexible rather than stereotyped actions. Finally, it is important to be aware of innovation within social policies and of trends towards activating certain target groups. All recent legislation and programmes incorporate the principle of activation and include very specific obligations to make beneficiaries responsible for compensating for the aid/benefits they have received. Social workers are the most important agents in this process of establishing responsibilities and contracting obligations and they play a central role in designing and adapting measures to respond to specific situations. This is sensitive work that often involves a combination of separate and contradictory roles – the advisory vs the supervisory – and a wide margin for manoeuvre and discretion that is not always linked to clear, straightforward procedural criteria. In presenting the outlines of the current approach to policies, we intend to reflect on a series of implications that are relevant to an understanding of the attitudes of professionals and institutions.

1. The new generation of social policies Over the years the Welfare State has acted as a “compensation machine”, in the apt phrase coined by Pierre Rosanvallon (1995: 107) and this has clearly proved inadequate for the kind of social risk prevailing nowadays, such as long-term unemployment or unemployment amongst unskilled workers. For certain categories of the population, jobs quite simply do not exist unless they are able to improve their prospects on the jobs market, which they are rarely capable of doing without some form of help. These improvements are only possible if the state offers other policies that are genuinely able to help people (re)integrate into labour market or society. Integration has become a key word. In general, the aim is to create an intermediate area between salaried employment and socially useful activities in cases where compensatory policies have failed. As such, they embody a series of innovative features that distinguish them from traditional social policies. Firstly, integration is more than a mere right to subsistence, since it acknowledges that the beneficiary has a positive role to play in society, namely by engaging in socially useful work. As Castel (1995) states, it does not only involve the right to survive but also the right to live in society. By considering individuals active citizens rather than just the recipients of aid, it introduces a philosophy of citizenship that is far removed from the traditional paternalistic relationship between state and beneficiary which generates dependency. Secondly, this obligation is not one-sided but has implications for society too, in forcing it to take the rights of the marginalised population into account. The mutual implications for the individual and for society are quite different from both traditional social legislation and paternalistic welfare. The obligations are therefore reciprocal: there is a responsibility on the part of the beneficiary, who is considered an actor in his/her own future, and an obligation on the part of society to provide resources. The process of social integration is, as a rule, subject to a contract between the beneficiary and the state and implies a positive obligation on the part of the beneficiary but, at the same time, represents an acknowledgement of her/her dignity as a citizen and actor (rather than a mere beneficiary). Thirdly, integration is a concept open to experimentation. The employment status which emerges during the integration process may take a variety of forms, broadly ranging from salaried employment to socially useful activities and including new forms of public work, as well as compensation combined with remuneration. One recent trend in social protection policies, particularly those concerned with welfare, involves the creation of specific programmes for particular social areas. The concentration of poverty in certain areas within large cities, even in wealthier societies such as the United Kingdom, has made the problem of poverty more visible and has led to the emergence of new forms of intervention aimed at eliminating “pockets of poverty”. Scarcity of resources has also favoured directing these policies towards poor communities in which the cultural problems of inherited poverty feature heavily and, equally, where the work of professionals can help a larger number of poorer individuals at a lower cost. To social selectivity – the opposite of the universalism of traditional social policy – geographical selectivity is now added, representing a major trend in state intervention. This is only one example of the change in philosophy affecting welfare policies today. Whilst the state upheld a relatively passive, desk-bound approach which was highly centralised and based on a bureaucratic departmental structure governed by strict rules, it maintained an authoritarian relationship with citizens, refusing to recognise that they had any authentic rights. The state assumed sole responsibility for intervention, operating in isolation. The citizen was merely a passive agent, since it was felt that any greater autonomy would only be used for personal gain. In general, the notion that individuals are influenced more by private than public interests is the norm in public-private relations. This new approach implies a more active attitude on the part of both state and citizens. The social services show greater initiative in seeking out citizens who are at risk and manage their operations on a more decentralised and flexible basis. Intervention is based on projects, following the principle of objectives-oriented management and sharing responsibility for achieving these objectives with other partners. The citizen, in turn, becomes an active, competent agent with whom the state negotiates the format of the policies to be applied and defines rights and obligations. The changes are evident both in the state and in society. Within the state there is now a confidence in the ability of civil society to develop autonomous initiatives and to play a stronger role in organising solidarity actions. Society has become more aware of rights, there is a deeper understanding of solidarity and new ways of organising actions and fighting passivity and fatalism have emerged.

2. An institution-based approach to social policies Everyone accepts that good policies in themselves are not enough. They need to be put into practice without distortions that may alter their aims and, in this context, the influence of institutional structures on policies is all too well known. The old saying “law in books, law in action” reminds us that there may be a huge gap between the underlying philosophy and planning of policies and their practical application. Structures that are rigid (precisely because of the economic and social interests that reside in them) filter new ideas and ways of developing them through their networks, fostering incremental change (Hudson & Lowe, 2004). It is necessary to adopt an institution-based approach in order to observe how state policies depend on institutions when being formulated and implemented. “Institutions incorporate culturally shaped social norms including, indeed especially, including those shaped by social class and economic elites” (Hudson & Lowe, 2004: 247). Policy trends in individual countries are both the result of forces operating at a global level (such as the economic power of the world market) and the previous institutional and historical/cultural legacy (Hudson & Lowe, 2004). Institutional factors vary according to the scope of the policies. Marsh and Rhodes (1992) distinguish between factors determining policies operating on a macro level (such as globalisation, and demographic change), meso level (such as policy networks) and micro level (such as particular groups or individuals who negotiate or apply policies). We are particularly interested in what takes place at meso and micro level. At meso level, the concept of policy networks – networks of collective actors which influence the implementation of policies – has proved very important in understanding resistance to change and the ways in which institutions and policy practices are adapted. Policy networks have different configurations and incorporate different agents – local social forces, networks of professionals close to power, lobbies of economic agents such as property developers, social development NGOs, employers’ associations and even certain informal networks and policy users – and have an enormous capacity to filter or mediate change. At micro level, institutional analysis covers the period when policies are under implementation and provides an understanding of the way in which users and the promoting institutions influence implementation. Moreover, it reveals how powerful personalities and elites influence the practical configuration of policies. In fact, “individuals and personalities matters a great deal to the outcomes of the policy process and in shaping the development of political cultures” (Hudson & Lowe, 2004: 250), an idea which owes much to Giddens’ classic distinction between structure and agency, or between the solid class, institutional and cultural structures and the ever fluid dynamics of actions and actors in the field. The microanalysis of policy implementation is based on an understanding of its complexity, characterised by its hybrid nature, unpredictability and multiple dimensions. It is therefore a very different form of analysis to the policy cycle approaches that are restricted to assessing the public’s opinion of its elected representatives and the suitability of policies on the basis of this opinion (Hudson & Lowe, 2004). One starting point for institutional theory is through the street-level bureaucrats, in this case the staff working in the welfare system, who play an important role in implementing social programmes. In a classic work on this subject, Street-Level Bureaucracy, published in 1980, Michael Lipsky analyses the way in which street- level bureaucrats (SLBs), who are in direct contact with the public, reflect and perpetuate the traditional values of society. For example, the author recognises that in the United States case officers are influenced by mainstream opinions on the poor, such as the notion that they are responsible for their way of life, that it is humiliating to receive benefits and that programmes to help the poor are costly for society. Consequently, they show a reluctance to relate to atypical groups (the poor or ethnic minorities) and subtly tend to justify the inadequate aid they allocate in practice with other reasons that amount to nothing more than their own preconceptions. However, an institution-based analysis extends further than simply citing the influence of stereotyping and shared values as revealed in the attitudes and practices of agents. Their own personal histories may also prove a decisive factor. For example, the more compassionate or colder attitudes often displayed by case officers towards users may be influenced by their professional background. “There is a clear link between the agent’s trajectory and their feelings in relation to low income groups” (Moulière et al. 1999:62). When the front-line agents are qualified professionals, as is the case with social workers, this personal history becomes more complex, since it includes professional ideologies acquired at school or during socialisation as professionals (the relative autonomy of the profession, the ideal of service, social neutrality i.e. the ethics of being non-judgemental and respecting individuals) which can be distinguished from and, at times conflict with, the bureaucratic approaches of the departments where they work. Finally, the importance of the ideology implicit in the services must be considered. This includes, for example, the ideology that the well-being of users is a priority for agents (benign intervention), according to which services are determined by the best interests of users and must not be compromised by the biased actions of agents. The corollary to this principle is that clients must be grateful for the benefits they receive and deferential to agents, who have a higher level of education, training and qualifications than they do (Lipsky, 1980). Another area that has a great influence on the attitudes and practices of agents is that of bureaucratic responsibility, given that this is an administrative demand in democratic regimes. Staff are therefore subjected to control (to a greater or lesser extent) over the legitimacy of their decisions and this becomes increasingly important as the margin of discretion they are allowed increases. With the advent of the new generation of social policies this discretion has been significantly extended in peripheral social services, as previously stated. One feature of these new policies is the individualised approach or, in other words, the method of planning a programme so that it can be adjusted to the specific profile of the recipient in terms of their needs, capabilities and expectations. This intuitu personae approach requires the case officer to be in close contact with the beneficiary, to have a detailed knowledge of their profile and a reasonable margin for manoeuvre in terms of designing a programme that is best suited to the particular circumstances of the case. This latter aspect is fundamental and justifies why officers in general, should be allowed a reasonably broad margin of discretion. However, the discretionary element also contains risks, one of which is indubitably its vulnerability to subjective or merely ideological decisions and criteria. Contrary to the frequent assertions of case officers, the discretionary element is strongly influenced by norms and values which, consciously or otherwise, result in bureaucratic, political or ethical bias. This occurs above all when the services fail to provide precise guidelines or administrative criteria to allow programmes to be adjusted to new situations and when there are no procedures for assessing performance. In these circumstances the values, beliefs and personal preconceptions of the professionals themselves emerge and are imposed. A previous study on the Guaranteed Minimum Income revealed that beneficiaries frequently complained of decisions made by case officers on the basis of their moral judgements of beneficiaries (Hespanha & Gomes, 2001; Hespanha, 2007a). The personalisation of policies and the obligation to draw up programme contracts with recipients means that social workers are subjected to a dual responsibility: a bureaucratic responsibility towards their departments and a substantive responsibility towards citizens who are seeking assistance. At times these responsibilities conflict, in particular when bureaucratic arguments underlying the management of resources (savings, cutbacks) prevent professionals from engaging as they should in their clients’ cases. In these situations, the services manage to ensure that agents comply with their objectives by reducing their discretion through procedures manuals, verbal orders, inspections or threats. Bureaucratic responsibility, on the contrary, would demand that the objectives of the departments, which are frequently ambiguous and multi-faceted, are clarified. Professionals may also subvert these efforts to control them, for example by falsifying and distorting the information they supply to their superiors, knowing how difficult it is to contest the reports they prepare due to their autonomy. Often this is done in the name of the ideological principles associated with citizenship which mould their profession. However, as there are various conflicting professional ideologies, caution needs to be exercised when identifying the principles justifying the use of discretion by agents in each specific case.

3. Objectives of the study and methodology The data used to examine the issues that have emerged is the result of the previously mentioned study on multi-problem families. The study primarily aimed to assess how social integration programmes are implemented. More specifically, it aimed to understand how families obtained access to the programmes, what the social integration plan consisted of, the extent to which plans were negotiated with families and whether direct interventions with families were combined with intervention within the social environment. A second objective of the study was an assessment of the bureaucratic management of the programmes in order to determine how the organisational structures of the institutions managing these programmes influenced the intervention outcomes. Finally, it aimed to understand how the discretion granted to professionals was exercised during the process of implementing social programmes. It sought to identify any discrepancies between the philosophy underlying the programmes and their real meaning for clients after implementation due to incorrect use of this discretion. Incorrect use of discretion was associated with bias in the application of programmes due, amongst other factors, to a lack of departmental criteria, the imposition of the personal beliefs and values of professionals or department heads, the overriding importance of bureaucratic criteria or an economy-based approach affecting the implementation of programmes. The study covered social work and intervention practises in a Social Protection Unit for Citizenship (Unidade de Protecção Social de Cidadania - UPSC) in a medium- sized District Social Security Centre. The report on these practices was provided by agents of the administration at varying levels of seniority: the Centre management (1 interview), the Unit management (1 interview), the working groups management (3 interviews), professionals involved in fieldwork for the local social services (15 interviews) other professionals involved in fieldwork who were not part of the social services (8 interviews) and social services clients (15 interviews). A wealth of information was obtained from the interviews, enabling the views of the respondents to be cross-referenced according to their responsibilities and seniority. The following section analyses the interview data for the second and third topics, whilst a more contextualised analysis of the first topic is reserved for the concluding section.

4. Results The results include individual issues such as guidance and coordination of work, the margin of autonomy granted to professionals involved in fieldwork, transparency of procedures, management of professional time, the trend towards externalisation of tasks, subjectivity and preconceptions, professional training, models for the assessment of outcomes and informality. All of these issues affect the efficiency of the intervention and may provide evidence of problems in internal organization.

Coordination problems The Unit Director is responsible for coordinating the professionals involved in fieldwork and for providing guidance and clarification. However, departmental relations with professionals are highly individualised and there seemed to be little investment in joint information or training exercises. In particular, there was no established practice of holding regular meetings with professionals working in the field for the purposes of sharing problems, evaluating work or establishing criteria or supervision. Moreover, it was evident that when the few departmental meetings involving case officers did take place they were dedicated to resolving administrative problems rather than analysing problems that had emerged during the course of interventions. Requests for guidance seem to have been ignored or lost in the twists and turns of departmental bureaucracy. As a result, coordinators were only consulted in highly complicated situations that required a response at senior level. The main complaint made by professionals regarding the way in which senior managers dealt with their queries was they were never heard. Isolated in their task of applying a programme to widely varying situations, professionals could only rely on their own common sense. This problem is even more serious for professionals working outside the area who have even less access to their immediate superiors. The most common strategy in these situations was to consult peers i.e. other professionals working in the same area.

Autonomy and transparency With regard to the functional autonomy of professionals working in the field, the manager responsible for coordinating their work stated that it was the practice of the services to allow case officers a great deal of initiative in making the proposals they considered most appropriate and great transparency was ensured in the analysis of these proposals. However, in the opinion of the case officers, their margin for manoeuvre was a good deal less than this, although they acknowledged that there were situations in which the seriousness of the case made them abandon the more cautious approach their seniors preferred. For example, in relation to decisions on whether to cancel RSI (social insertion income) payments, the existence of children in a family could lead the professional not to cancel the payment even if this meant that they had to manage their information strategically. According to one professional, the more rigid attitudes of managers were due to the fact that they did not always have experience of fieldwork and, additionally, their preoccupation with “making lots of agreements and cancelling lots of payments.” This “productivity-based” attitude towards the management of services is undoubtedly generated by the government’s general attitude of contesting public spending, fuelled by cutbacks and savings. From the point of view of the professionals working in the field, it is the cause of much bad feeling since it makes it difficult to negotiate agreements with families and becomes particularly serious when the professional is “committed” to providing aid that is not subsequently authorised by coordinators or is substantially reduced. Often this discomfort is directed towards the legislation itself which, as it takes a strict line on financial support, appears to contradict the stated aim of reintegration.

Time management and outsourcing The most frequent complaint voiced by professionals was that they did not have enough time to carry out all their duties. This was not only a matter of being allocated an unreasonable caseload but also the fact that their routine involved a wide range of bureaucratic tasks that consumed large amounts of time and energy. Lack of time can have very negative effects and social work involves a lot of bureaucratic work to back up intervention, which requires a lot of time to complete. Lack of time often leads to partial, delayed or omitted records, since priority is given to direct intervention. Recent alterations to the distribution of work in the services has led to better working conditions for case officers and has therefore reduced the stress of managing and monitoring the most difficult cases. Formal and informal agreements have been established with some of the NGOs, under which a certain number of families are supervised by professionals from these institutions, which also relieves municipal case officers of a great deal of casework. Even so, it is evident that many professionals are still overloaded with family casework. Certain problems were cited in relation to this trend of delegating the powers formerly exercised by the CDSS (District Social Security Centre) to external bodies through the so-called atypical agreements or formal agreements. One of these concerned the lack of criteria for monitoring and assessing atypical agreements. Plans of action and reports submitted by these institutions have widely differing formats which makes them difficult to analyse, and the structure of the documents therefore needs to be standardised. In addition, the lack of any assessment by the RSI Group of the performance of case officers dealing with atypical agreements was also mentioned. A further problem cited by professionals concerned the unequal distribution of work between social security officers and officers appointed through formal agreements. The latter were provided with teams consisting of a social worker, psychologist, social coordinator and educator to do the same work as the former and generally dealt with far fewer cases. Perhaps because of this, all the respondents recognised the advantages of formal agreements given that they made provision for a more complete and integrated type of work with families.

Informal practices and the discretionary element As in any organisation, the internal workings of a department are not only governed by the legal rules which regulate its operations, nor do these cover all the areas in which it is engaged. To a large extent, a department is also governed by norms resulting from internal decisions that have become part of current practice: procedures that bridge the gaps in legal regulations, expedients used to achieve objectives more easily, subversion of the power structure, short-cutting the managerial hierarchy, etc. All these ways round the formal-legal system tend to become institutionalised and to constitute the unwritten rules created by the organisation itself. Moreover, these unwritten rules may come to represent a “negotiated order” (Strauss et al., 1963) in the sense that it reflects the different de facto powers and competences distributed throughout the service and is able to impose rules or limitations on formal powers and competences. The institutionalization of these rules allows the informal system to acquire autonomy over concrete matters and their authors (Selznick, 1996:129). The existence of an informal order within the services may have detrimental effects on its functioning and ability to meet objectives. Conversely, it may facilitate work in the midst of overbearing and inadequate decision-making structures by preventing paralysis of the services in the face of the inefficiency of the formal order, extending the resources available to meet certain objectives or resolving or mitigating conflicts between agents of the service. Non-bureaucratic relations between staff – based on friendship, loyalty, client interests or external commitments – may ease or complicate the work of the service but certainly constitute an extremely important factor in any assessment of its work. The case study on which this work is based revealed many traces of an informal system of practices designed, above all, to overcome inadequacies in the formal system, whether or not it constituted an informal institutionalized order. We will now examine some aspects of these practices. Firstly, they included practical responses to the lack of any departmental guidelines clarifying procedures for specific situations. The absence of a clear framework for procedures was cited as a serious deficiency which led professionals to depend, to a great extent, on their own judgements in resolving situations, meaning that these forms of resolution were very uncoordinated. Uncertainty regarding the most suitable procedures for particular situations becomes more widespread as policies become increasingly personalized or individualised. Where there is a lack of departmental guidance, professionals opt for solutions based solely on close knowledge, which is difficult to contest. In some of these cases, informal procedures may result in the case being resolved in ways which diverge from established norms. A second source of informality can be found in the extremely discretionary system associated with certain social programmes. Thus in active social integration policies, of which the RSI is a good example, professionals are allowed a broad margin for manoeuvre in order to adjust programme objectives to concrete situations. However, for this adjustment to be correct (and not subjectively biased) it is necessary to have a set of criteria and guidelines based on experience and transmitted through the hierarchies responsible for coordinating the work of the professionals (Sousa et. al. 2007:91). These criteria would have to be the result of a painstaking reflection on procedures used previously in intervention practices, involving the professionals themselves, rather than a deductive exercise carried out by central departments based on the philosophy of the programmes. A third source of informality arises out of difficulties in coordinating the work of the various partners who collaborate in the implementation of a particular programme at local level. In many situations involving professionals from other partner institutions collaboration is only possible due to the high level of confidence and trust that exists and the ethic of mutual help. The recurrent practice of informal cooperation tends to generate informal networks of professionals that are recognised as an efficient means of overcoming institutional paralysis.

5. Conclusions and implications The success or otherwise of social policies depends to a great extent on how they are implemented and put into practice in the field. In the social services department we studied, the professionals most directly involved in implementing these measures were the social workers. An analysis of the effective achievements of these types of policies must therefore include an analysis of their professional practices. Relationships with their immediate superiors and the role played by the latter must also be considered. Amongst many other aspects observed during the course of this study and the many approaches used by managers and professionals, those which follow have been identified definitively. Coordination with little involvement Relations within the department between professionals and their immediate superiors are, in general, very individualised and there seems to be little investment in collective information and training sessions. In particular, there is no practice of holding regular meetings with professionals working in the field in order to share problems, assess measures and establish criteria or supervision. The scarcity of departmental meetings and the lack of any clear framework for procedures is a serious limitation which leads professionals to depend overly on their own judgements in resolving situations or to resort frequently to guidance and consultation, often with their own peers, since requests for guidance from managers in certain areas seem to be ignored. There is a clear awareness on the part of immediate superiors of the need to restructure the services in order to make them more functional and less bureaucratic but these reforms are either delayed or very sporadic and it was also evident that they had no power to influence the form they took and were, to a certain extent, resigned to the situation. However, part of the blame for the lack of efficiency in the services can also be attributed to poor work organisation on the part of professionals. The most frequent explanations they cited in their defence were a lack of time for all the duties assigned to them and the shifting priorities to which their work is subjected. Not only are they allocated more than the recommended number of cases, but in addition their routine work includes a variety of bureaucratic tasks that consume a lot of time and energy. Rather than a cause, poor organisation of work may be seen as a reflection of inadequate coordination. As proof of this, recent alterations to the distribution of work within the services, which improved working conditions for case officers, have had good results and seem to have reduced the stress involving in managing and monitoring the more difficult cases.

Outsourcing as a panacea This began as a very limited experiment, but soon contracting out professional social work assignments and the supervision of RSI agreements to voluntary organisations became a strategic approach for the state. Formally the situations are distinct, since they involve informal agreements, atypical agreements and protocols, but the result is the same: the public social services are delegating a range of tasks which they had previously undertaken using their own resources to non-government welfare organisations. It will be some time before the results of this strategy can be assessed, but the coexistence of the two systems has led to certain problems which emerged during the interviews. Firstly there is the problem of the very unequal distribution of casework between social services staff and the staff of these institutions. Whereas the latter have a limited number of cases, as stated in the terms of the agreement with the local social services department, the former are still obliged to supervise an indefinite and, in general, much higher number of cases. Moreover, the contracted institutions are provided with teams from a variety of backgrounds, unlike the municipal social services structures which consist of only one (or possibly more) social worker. A second problem emerging from the interviews concerns the lack of criteria for monitoring and assessing atypical agreements and formal protocols. The rigorous control exercised over social services professionals working in the field, founded on a “productivity-based” logic, has not been evident in the contracted organisations, given the institutional autonomy of the partners. A more important issue, however, is control over legality and the defence of public interests regarding individual entitlements, such as the minimum income scheme in question. Moreover, bearing in mind the traditional difficulties involved in the supervision of non-government welfare organisations (Hespanha et al, 2000), this is likely to become a serious problem.

Binding professional practices to bureaucratic interests Rather than a binding professional relationship with users of services, there seems to be a tendency to identify the work of professionals with more regulatory, supervisory and disciplinary norms, in short, with more “repressive” standards. The social worker is thus frequently seen as a kind of inspector of incomes or even of lifestyles. This may perhaps be explained by the fact that controlling expenditure and an obsession with fraud has become the main concern of the service hierarchies. In this context, the strategy of the most severely constrained professionals, particularly the youngest and/or those with less stable terms of employment (e.g. those in precarious positions or on fixed term contracts) tends to be that of defensively reproducing the institutional norms outside the institution (i.e. to users) and uncritically adjusting to hierarchical attitudes within the institution. We could find no suitable indicators to measure these two trends with any degree of accuracy, but evidence or indications of their importance do exist.

The strength of conservative common sense Another aspect that is also related to this general tendency towards a restrictive and tightly-controlled management is the cautious and conservative attitude consciously or unconsciously fostered amongst professionals. In general, the work of these professionals tends to be infused with conservative or even moralistic rather than emancipatory perspectives on problems. A lack of understanding of the local circumstances in which policies are applied is also a contributing factor. The most recent discourses and practices have emphasised the need to use studies as the basis for decision-making in order to assess the results of actions that have been developed. Nevertheless, the fact (still) remains that not enough information has been processed on areas in which this work is to be carried out. Above all, it seems that neither managers nor case officers have genuinely interiorised the importance of having local access to these tools. In their absence, they are replaced by a mystification of reality – constructed on the basis of partial views and experiences that are nevertheless accepted as authentic by all – as the grounds for decision- making.

Objectivity vs subjectivity in practice Professional fieldwork requires a personalised assessment of client needs that is, by necessity, subjective and always involves a value judgement concerning the priority that should be assigned to each case. However, it is not easy for professionals to accept the idea that their assessments are subjective. On the contrary, they stress that their judgements are always objective, rigorous and absolutely neutral, since they are based on strict compliance with the rules.

Success and failure of social work intervention The success or failure of policies depends to a great extent on the professionals’ understanding of how each person receiving aid experiences their own particular circumstances and their expectations, desires or motivations. Subsequently it depends on these subjective and relational factors, which appear to receive little or no consideration at all, being incorporated into the assessment procedures for each case. According to the statements we collected, the experience of prolonged intervention with a difficult public that has limited success tends to generate a series of negative effects, attitudes and behaviour in the professionals, namely: - Overload and demotivation: given the enormous number of difficult cases and their persistence in the same area, a sense of impotence may undermine motivation; - Mistrust: amongst difficult clients, the survival strategies of those receiving assistance may lead them to omit any information that is unfavourable to them. The effect is to create general mistrust on all sides, an attitude that seriously undermines the normal relationship between the social services and the user, above all when the user feels their dignity has been attacked. - Routine: the lack of reflection on experiences and the lack of time to reflect does not allow for innovation or for more attention to the multiple dimensions of the problems addressed. The same applies to the need for an integrative approach involving professionals from various different services. Intervention is not effective in resolving needs because it does not deal with problems in the most effective manner i.e. does not explore them in detail or supervise them appropriately. Moreover, the organisation of the services does not sufficiently value the individual efforts and hard work of professionals. It is not easy to overcome these attitudes and much depends on how the different aspects of the intervention operate: i. how intervention programmes recognise and adapt to the different types of poverty and social exclusion which they aim to combat; ii. how the services are organised to manage intervention within a particular area by jointly diagnosing problems and needs, carefully planning the intervention and scrupulously monitoring the results; and iii. how professionals relate to clients and value or cultivate trust and mutual respect towards them. These are difficult but urgent requirements, which involve others in addition to the professionals and departmental heads observed here, namely political decision- makers and public opinion.

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