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Despite The Inherent Logic And Rationale Behind The Framing Of These Policies ...

Despite the inherent logic and rationale behind the framing of these policies they have come in for trenchant and castigatory criticism from various quarters, including, not unsurprisingly, from social workers who were active before the introduction of these changes. Critics argue that the concept of consumerism and managerialism, borrowed from business and commerce is antithetical to the provision of social work, which necessarily has to be individualistic, caring and compassionate.
Consumerism results in clients taking on the mantle of consumers who are able to select services, rather than merely being beneficiaries dependent on the judgment or prudence of social workers. Opponents of marketisation however counter argue that even when market forces decide on the availability of services for meeting needs, resulting in the relationships between social workers and consumers becoming less hierarchical, these relationships continue to remain tilted towards the social workers because of their authority to carry out assessments and their knowledge of what is on offer in the markets. The actual range of choice and the protection available to the consumer thus hardly improves and remains as limited as ever.
Managerialism, however works in many subversive ways. At one level it works in tandem with consumerism, enjoining social workers to make efficient decisions and thus encouraging greater choices in selection of service providers. On the other hand it attaches more importance to targets and budgets rather than to client needs, thus diluting the quality of service. It effectively removes much front line social work from professionally qualified social workers and allows service provision to be determined by the market. (Starkey, 2000) Social work that is shaped by managerialism is characterised by service fragmentation, financial restrictions, resource unavailability, and increased bureaucracy and can very possibly lead to increased distancing between managers and workers, as well as workers and clients.
Even though the rationale behind the many changes introduced in the practice of social work are theoretically incontestable it would be wrong, short sighted and unnecessarily obdurate to ignore existing apprehensions or the criticisms levelled by people regarding the basic incompatibility between cold headed business processes and activities that require compassion, understanding and care. Extra vigilance and commitment by front line social workers to guard against the erosion of compassion, even as they continue to work under tight budgets, administrative controls, and strict answerability norms, is perhaps the difficult but only answer.
References
Aldridge, M, 1994, Making Social Work News. New York: Routledge.
Burgess, H. & Taylor, O. (Eds.), 2004, Effective Learning and Teaching in Social Policy and Social Work. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Dixon, J. & Scheurell, R.

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