Session IV - SW23A

1. Session IV - SW23A Welfare Pluralism Concepts of 'welfare pluralism' and 'the mixed economy of welfare' have recently come to increasing prominence in social policy discussions. They are used to describe a reduced role for state intervention in welfare and greater emphasis an voluntary action informal and the market. – Beresford & Croft (2009)

2. Objectives • Define welfare pluralism • Delineate the role of the actors in the administration of welfare. • Evaluate the legitimacy of welfare pluralism • Conclude the best blend for the nations of the Region. • Predict the role of human service professionals in administering welfare in the Caribbean.

3. The Context • In some countries, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) are major contributors to development processes. This is not uniform, however. • In a number of countries, NGOs are weak or play more of an oppositional rather than operational role and governments are highly suspicious of them.

4. The Context • The principal avenues by which governments can influence the operational environment for NGOs are: • Nature and quality of governance (pluralism, accountability, etc.). • The legal framework (registration, reporting requirements, etc.). • Taxation policies (on imported goods, local philanthropy, etc.). • Collaboration with NGOs (when? sector? nature of partnership?).

5. The Context • The principal avenues by which governments can influence the operational environment for NGOs are: • Public consultation and information (policy impact of NGOs). • Coordination (role for governments in coordinating NGO activities). • Official support (government funding, official contracts).

6. The Context • NGOs have become important actors in development assistance for at least three reasons: First, because of their scale. In 1989, they contributed US$6.4 billion to developing countries (including $2.2 billion of official funds), representing some 12 percent of total development assistance. • Second, because of their style of work. Many NGOs have demonstrated an ability to reach poor people, work in inaccessible areas, innovate, or in other ways achieve things which are difficult for official agencies (Tendler 1982).

7. The Context • Third, many of them represent poorer people. Many NGOs have close links with poor communities. Some are membership organizations of poor or vulnerable people. Others are skilled at participatory approaches.

8. The Context • The NGO attributes cited above have become increasingly important in recent years as: Official aid agencies and many governments seek to give greater attention to assisting women, the food insecure, indigenous peoples, AIDS sufferers/orphans and other vulnerable groups, which NGOs are better able to reach. • Long experience of work with communities living in environmentally sensitive areas (including forests, desert margins, urban slums, etc.) provides NGOs with certain comparative advantages in dealing with environmental issues.

9. The Context • There is a more clearly recognized need for pluralism and prominent citizens' voices in national development planning. NGOs can contribute to this in many ways including, at the local level, by the promotion of grassroots mobilization for social change (Clark 1991) or participatory development.

10. The Context • There is increasing realization of the need to "roll back the State" in many countries where it has become over-extended. This gives greater prominence to the private and voluntary sectors. • The rapid growth in numbers of NGOs many highly-specialized or localized which gives donors a wide choice of partners and considerable influence over those partners in many countries. This proliferation is highly country-specific.

11. Who Provides Social Services? • Welfare services were historically provided by families, communities, religious orders, and private charities. • Provision of social services by the state occurred in the 1st world with the advent of the “welfare state”, (Spicker, 2008). • Very few developing countries are welfare states.

12. Welfare Pluralism – “mixed economy of welfare” • Provision of social/welfare services by a range of social actors. • Welfare pluralism involves six main actors • State • Non-partisan government • Private sector • Voluntary sector - NGOs and charities, Social/ Community/Special Interest/Religious groups • Informal sector - family, friends, neighbours • International Development Partners (IDPs)

13. Who Provides Social Services? • The view of the State being central to organisation and delivery of welfare is “half truth at best” and Titmuss referred to the “social division of welfare” (Spicker, 2008; 135).

14. Welfare Pluralism Defined • The coordination of service delivery through a plurality of service providers. • The concepts of welfare pluralism (WP) and mixed economy of welfare (MEW), were formulated in the late 1970s and early 1980s in an attempt to emphasise the plurality of sources and forms of intervention in welfare.

15. Pertinent Questions regarding the Delivery of Social/Welfare Programmes • Should the State provide universal coverage for all or should it be a residual provider for persons excluded from access to private provision? • What scope & what extent? • Should the State enter partnerships with the Private Sector and NGOs? • On what terms?

16. Rationale for Welfare Pluralism • Most countries already used this model • In 1st world increasing costs (OPEC oil shocks of 1973 and 1979) strained fiscal resources • The rise of economic neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus in the 1980s (influenced primarily by Margaret Thatcher- UK and Ronald Reagan- US, called Thatcherism/ Reaganomics).

17. Neo-liberal Approach to Social Policy • Neo-liberal advocates urged States to assume a ‘back seat’ position’. • The market was seen as the best allocator of resources. This resulted in a move from the “welfare state” to the “welfare mix” (Dean, 2008)

18. After 1970s oil shocks, recession in North many countries experienced a period of economic stagflation (high inflation coupled with low growth). This reduced their ability to fund universal provision of social services. Third World countries were forced to cut social spending under structural adjustment programmes

19. The Case Behind reduced State Involvement • High Cost for universal provisioning • Inefficienct/ slow service provided by government agencies • Uneven coverage • Poor quality service

20. What must be the State’s Role under Welfare Pluralism? 1. Establishment of policy • Only the State has the mechanism for taking decisions on social policy and welfare provisioning for the nation. 2. Providing the institutional and legal framework for the delivery of social services

21. State’s Role • Planning, designing and integrating health and education services State is able to capitalize on economies of scale in purchasing to obtain lower costs. Cost sharing sometimes used. 4.Establishment, enforcement and maintenance of minimum universal standards

22. What must be the State’s Role? 5. Regulation and monitoring of social services provided by State and allied non-state actors 6. Assisting disadvantaged groups through the provision of safety nets, subsidies etc.

23. What must be the State’s Role? • To protect children & other vulnerable groups like elderly, mentally ill, and disabled. 8. To step in to plug gaps when necessary services cannot be provided by the private market or will be closed because they are unprofitable.

24. Welfare Pluralism • Private, Voluntary and informal sectors play an important role • Citizens through voluntary groups, NGOs are participating more in discussions which shape social policy • Role of IDPs becoming more important

25. Welfare Pluralism Inevitable • Neo-liberal ideological shift • Most states do not have the resources to provide for all welfare needs • “It was only when it began to become apparent that government was neither willing nor able to ‘deliver the goods’ that unrest began to reappear, and private, voluntary initiatives in this sphere re-emerged” – Dr. Peta-Ann Baker writing about the post-Independence period in Jamaica (1993; 346)

26. Welfare Pluralism • Ferreira (2008) believes that welfare mixes should be considered in their particular territorial contexts, policy fields and historical moments. • Second, there is a plurality of sources of welfare such that the typical components of MEW can be complemented with those of the social division of welfare (SDW). • While MEW concerns the articulation between welfare mechanisms such as state, market, voluntary and informal governance, SDW considers diverse means of welfare delivery such as statutory, occupational and fiscal.

27. The Social Division of Welfare • Titmuss identified several different kinds of redistributive process, arguing that it was not possible to understand the redistributive impact of social policy without taking them fully into account. He referred to a 'social division of welfare', including three main types of welfare: • 1. social welfare (the social services);2. fiscal welfare (welfare distributed through the tax system); and3. occupational welfare (welfare distributed by industry as part of employment).

28. The Social Division of Welfare • The classification is fairly crude. The category of fiscal welfare bundles together subsidies, incentives and transfer payments, including income maintenance. • Occupational welfare includes perks, salary-related benefits, measures intended to improve the efficiency of the workforce and some philanthropic measures. • The classification excludes legal welfare (redistribution through the courts), the voluntary sector and the informal sector.

29. The Social Division of Welfare • The importance of the idea was: • to draw attention to different patterns of redistribution • to explain that different kinds of redistribution (for example by tax or by benefits) can have similar effects, and • to broaden the scope of social policy as a subject.

30. Welfare Pluralism • Third, Ferreira (2008) showed that the provision, financing and regulation are three ways through which these sources intervene in welfare. • Provision and production relate to the themes of production/ownership and to the question of who pays for welfare, regulation relates to legal political authority and can be measured in terms of the degree of control.

31. Welfare Pluralism • The key effort to re-define the voluntary sector role as supplementary and complementary to the statutory sector was Beveridge's "Voluntary Action" of 1948. • He set out the way forward for the voluntary sector as being advice, leisure, pioneering and experimentation, and this model remained the dominant ideology for the 1950s and the 1960s, leaving the voluntary sector on the periphery of the welfare state in the UK.

32. Welfare Pluralism • Voluntary and nonprofit organisations in the world over are taking on increasing responsiblity for the delivery of social services to local communities. • Many voluntary sector organisations have moved from being providers of supplementary and complementary services, to being providers of core statutory services under a formal contract.

33. Welfare Pluralism Inevitable • Neo-liberal ideological shift • Most states do not have the resources to provide for all welfare needs • “It was only when it began to become apparent that government was neither willing nor able to ‘deliver the goods’ that unrest began to reappear, and private, voluntary initiatives in this sphere re-emerged” – Dr. Peta-Ann Baker writing about the post-Independence period in Jamaica (1993; 346)

34. Role of Voluntary Sector • Diversifying social service provision and supplementing state services • NGOs are seen as more effective in delivering aid, and ensuring that more $ reach the poor • In 1981 US Congress mandated the USAID to allocate between 12 – 16% of its development funds to NGOs who are seen as more efficient utilizers of funds, than states

35. Role of Voluntary Sector • Increasing citizen participation/ altruism • Public advocacy on behalf of vulnerable • NGOs see themselves “as partners of government, or they see themselves in compensatory and corrective roles: making up for the failings of the existing system, or serving as a ‘voice of the voiceless’ in pointing out these failings” (Baker, 347)

36. Role of Voluntary Sector • Increasing accountability from the State & other welfare providers • Assisting with poverty alleviation • Assistance to excluded groups e.g. orphans, homeless, street children • Provision of education and health care

37. Role of Voluntary Sector • Helping groups that might reject State services or might be stigmatized by State services (prostitutes, HIV/AIDS patients, drug addicts, prison ministry of churches) • Risk of NGO sector being co-opted/used by foreign IDPs or local governments to further their own ends

38. Role of IDPs • Very active in shaping the global social policy agenda Key agencies include • United Nations Development Program - UNDP • UNICEF • UNFPA • USAID • PAHO/WHO

39. IDP Programmes • poverty reduction programmes • improving the welfare of women and children • improving healthcare, e.g. immunization coverage, sexual and reproductive health, • infrastructure projects, e.g. sanitation, water supply systems

40. The Role of the Private Sector • Provision of social services at a cost, e.g. private schools, private medical facilities • Provision of specialized services • Occupational welfare to workers

41. The Role of the Private Sector • Partnering with the State and other NGOs in welfare provision E.g.- Adopt-a-School programmes; Provision of computer labs • Provision of medical equipment to hospitals • Financing cost of CXC subjects by NCB ** Firms benefit from tax write-offs, creates good corporate image.

42. Limitations of Private Provision • Private market does not respond to social need, will not provide services to areas/groups which are unprofitable. • Externalities - Education, healthcare, parks etc. have value to society outside of the value to an individual/company. • State services have other functions e.g. socialization, disease prevention

43. The Role of the Informal Sector • Reduces the burden on the State • Plugs gaps in state social services • Care of sick, elderly or persons discharged from mental institutions provided . • Thinking Point: Students to note implications of having welfare pluralism.

44. Approaches to Welfare Pluralism • Approaches to the coordination of service provision: • the use of the market to coordinate service delivery, with a reliance upon the price mechanism and a system of negotiated/competitive contracts to ensure service delivery.

45. Approaches to Welfare Pluralism • Here, services are coordinated by using negotiated, and sometimes competitive, tendering processes. • Providers face the transaction costs of tendering for these contract (particularly in terms of information about the services that they might contract for, and about the activities of their potential competitors/collaborators).

46. Approaches to Welfare Pluralism • Build networks as a way to minimise these informational transaction costs by gaining information both from the purchasers about the service specifications and from competitors and collaborators about the range of alternative ways in which the service provision might be approached.

47. Kingston Restoration Corporation • The KRC was formed in response to the dramatic economic and social deterioration of the downtown area of Kingston in the mid 1970s and early 1980s. This deterioration was a consequence of the numerous fires and riots that plagued the city, as a result of which many businesses migrated from the area.

48. Kingston Restoration Corporation • As a result the Inner Kingston Development Project was born. This was a ten year urban economic and physical development initiative, which began in July 1986. It was designed to revitalize Kingston, Jamaica’s downtown core and provide work space for economic growth and job generation. The two principal implementing agencies were the Kingston Restoration Company Limited and the Urban Development Corporation, the primary developmental parastatalorganisation of the Government of Jamaica with USAID being the funding agency.

49. Kingston Restoration Corporation • The goal of the project was to reverse the negative economic trends and disinvestment that had been occurring downtown since the mid 1970s and contributed to Jamaica’s need for increased private investment and employment opportunities.

50. Kingston Restoration Corporation • The rationale in 1986 for focusing the Project on Inner Kingston was threefold: (1) it had the highest rate of unemployment in the area, (2) reversing its deterioration would help to rekindle investment expectations nationwide and (3) the area offered significant opportunities for cost savings in development because infrastructure systems were in place and vacant building shells could be rehabilitated and put to productive use economically.