The Art of Bold Policy Reform: lessons from Australia and the UK

Relevance to panel: This paper is focused on the design of welfare-to-work services, in particular the impact of design differences on Australia and the UK. The paper also speaks to a range of the panel’s other key themes... [ view full abstract ]

Relevance to panel:
This paper is focused on the design of welfare-to-work services, in particular the impact of design differences on Australia and the UK. The paper also speaks to a range of the panel’s other key themes including innovation in government and the impact of design on service delivery practice.

The significance of the research (why it is distinctive and its contribution to the field):
This research has made a significant contribution to understanding how policy informs frontline behavior. In this paper draws on almost 20 years worth of original data to compare the Australian and UK systems overall.

The research question(s) and method:
Since 1998 we have been surveying frontline welfare-to-work staff in Australia and the UK to learn how they do their job; interact with policy makers; and make sense of the services they deliver. This presentation will draw on a range of key questions asked of frontline staff in 1998, 2009, 2012 and 2016.

The theoretical/conceptual foundations for the research:
For the past decade Australian policy makers have claimed to be undertaking bold and significant welfare reform. The most recent example was when Australia moved from Job Services Australia to Jobactive, as its overarching welfare-to-work service regime. Yet despite this, evidence we have collected at the frontline suggests that Australian welfare policy reform has not had a sizable impact at the point of delivery. From a client-facing perspective, Australian welfare policy is rather stagnant. This suggests that Australian policy makers either do not really wish to drive large-scale change, or do not know how to do so. This stands in contrast to the UK’s welfare-to-work reform agenda, which has been persistently bold, including large-scale, risk-taking change. For example, at present, Whitehall is dismantling the UK’s private welfare-to-work system and re-nationalising the service.

In this paper we explore reasons why, in relation to welfare-to-work, the UK has managed to undertake a series of significant policy reforms, while the Australian government has not. We consider a range of reasons why this might be the case including the possibility that policy makers in Australia consider the Australian system ideal, and therefore do not wish to achieve reform; the reforms Australian policy makers seek to undertake become blocked by private agency management and therefore rarely express themselves at the frontline; or that an entirely privatised system, such as the Australian system, allows for only minor reform as the ‘nuts and bolts’ of service delivery must remain consistent so jobseekers receive a minimal level of service.

The results to be reported:
We conclude that despite the innovation agenda New Public Management advocates see at the heart of service privatisation, the UK system appears to tolerate sweeping and significant change in a way that seems impossible in Australia at present. We suggest that this capacity is linked to the UK’s mixed-market and that there is something special about keeping the welfare-to-work system partially public that has afforded UK policy makers greater freedom to generate change among private service providers.