David Prior

Spoilt for choice? How consumerism can disempower public service users

The determination to increase individual choice lies at the heart of the Governments public service reforms and its strategy for empowering citizens as consumers. This article, informed by recent sociological discussions of the characteristics of contemporary social life, suggests that prioritizing individual choice can have disempowering consequences for public service users, generating confusion, uncertainty and stress. A better alternative would be to develop means of strengthening users’ influence over the shape and content of services.

A Different Kind of Evidence? Looking for ‘What Works’ in Engaging Young Offenders

The skills and knowledge required by practitioners to develop relationships with young offenders that will engage and sustain them in intervention programmes is a core theme of the ‘effective practice’ literature. Yet this question of how to secure young people’s engagement is scarcely examined in research on interventions with young offenders, despite an apparent preoccupation with ‘what works’. The article discusses this disjuncture between the research and practice literatures, arguing that prevailing orthodoxies regarding what constitutes valid research evidence prevent certain questions about what works and how from being studied. It is suggested that both the practice literature and alternative research methodologies can provide rigorous evidence in response to these questions.

From private choice to public trust: a new social basis for welfare

Consumer choice is an inadequate mechanism for empowering public service users. People want to feel confidence in services which are intended to meet their welfare needs. But it is no longer possible or acceptable to conceive of such confidence as based in unquestioning trust of service professionals. If it is to be effective in creating positive relationships between public services and their users; trust must be reciprocal. This article suggests how reciprocal relationships of trust can be built and sustained between welfare services and the citizens who use and pay for them, at both individual and collective levels.

Beyond ASBOs? Evaluating the outcomes of anti-social behaviour initiatives – Early findings from a case study in one English City

Abstract The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 makes responding to anti-social behaviour a strategic and operational priority for local authorities. Political and managerial assessment of performance tends to focus on the use of legal interventions, in particular the number of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) obtained by an authority. This article considers how the members of a team of anti-social behaviour officers in the city of Birmingham define the outcomes of their work and how these should be assessed. It demonstrates the considerable range of social impacts that officers believe their work should generate. The implications for evaluating the teams work, which would seem to go far beyond ‘counting ASBOs’, are discussed.

Civil Renewal and Community Safety: Virtuous Policy Spiral or Dynamic of Exclusion?

Civil renewal is an emerging policy priority for the UK government, aiming to build stronger, more cohesive communities and to encourage individual citizens to be active members of such communities. The promotion of social capital and trust relationships is central to this approach. Strategies to improve community safety and reduce crime and disorder are closely related to the drive for civil renewal, with the two sets of policies seen as mutually supportive. This article shows, however, that many community safety initiatives are founded on relationships of suspicion between citizens. This generates a dynamic of exclusion that is likely to undermine attempts at civil renewal.

In search of the new public management

Managing the New Public Services. Edited by David Farnham and Sylvia Horton. Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1993. Pp. 282. £35 hb, £11.99 pb. Rediscovering Public Services Management. Edited by Leslie Willcocks and Jenny Harrow. McGraw‐Hill, London, 1992. Pp. 341. £18.95 pb. Not For Profit, Not For Sale ‐ The Challenge of Public Sector Management. By Michael Starks. Policy Journals, Newbury, 1991. Pp. 168. £25 hb, £9.95 pb. Public Sector Management. By Norman Flynn. 2nd edition, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1993. Pp. 203. £29.95 hb, £10.95 pb.

Disciplining the multicultural community: ethnic diversity and the governance of anti-social behaviour

This article examines the relationship between the characterisation of and response to anti-social behaviour issues in areas of high ethnic diversity and emerging ‘post-multicultural’ policies of integration, cohesion and citizenship. It draws on a small study of the views and perceptions of members of local community safety and anti-social behaviour teams in three areas of England with very ethnically diverse populations. The analysis distinguishes between responses to ASB issues within ‘settled’ minority communities, among young people from those communities and within the ‘new’ immigrant communities. While these responses vary, the article argues that each can be seen as supporting national policy goals of community cohesion and responsible citizenship based on the assertion of ‘shared values’.

Responding to anti‐social behaviour: reconciling topdown imperatives with bottom‐up emotions

This article explores understandings of and responses to anti‐social behaviour (ASB) among members of a local authority specialist ASB unit, and the perceptions and experiences of local citizens whose complaints had been dealt with by that unit. It suggests that ASB officers operate in a ‘space’ between the demands of policy makers and the needs of residents and communities. Whilst complainant satisfaction is a key indicator of performance, the way this is achieved is more varied than a simple reliance on enforcement.

Conceptualising connectedness: implications for policy and practice

Social Policy and Society / Volume 6 / Issue 02 / April 2007, pp 199 208 DOI: 10.1017/S1474746406003460, Published online: 12 March 2007 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1474746406003460 How to cite this article: Marian Barnes and David Prior (2007). Conceptualising Connectedness: Implications for Policy and Practice. Social Policy and Society, 6, pp 199-208 doi:10.1017/S1474746406003460 Request Permissions : Click here

Anti-Social Behaviour and Civil Renewal

A clear example of the ‘new governance’ identified in chapter 1 is found in policies to address problems of crime and disorder in local areas. Whilst crime policy under New Labour is shaped in part by a continuing commitment to the punishment and incapacitation of offenders, it is also characterized by a commitment to methods of crime control in which ‘the community’ occupies a central place (Garland, 2001). Indeed, the promotion of such methods — generally grouped together under the broad heading of community safety — has been one of the government’s major policy priorities (for detailed discussion, see: Benyon and Edwards, 1999; Crawford, 1998, 2001; Hughes, 1998; Hughes and Edwards, 2002; Hughes, McLaughlin and Muncie, 2002; Matthews and Pitts, 2001). Issues of local governance are at the core of community safety policy. The Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships (CDRPs), established by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in every local authority area in England and Wales, have become a significant feature in the new governance landscape. They bring together the local authority and the police service as lead partners, along with other key agencies such as the fire service, health services, probation service, housing associations and voluntary and community sector organizations, with statutory responsibilities to respond to those problems of crime and disorder whose impact is felt most acutely in the everyday life of neighbourhoods and communities.