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First published in 1997, this volume is about the challenge of
introducing business-originated concepts of quality assurance,
personal social services are currently confronted with all over
Europe. Undoubtedly, the new orientation towards a more
business-like approach in social welfare settings will raise
professionalism, "client-orientation" and controlling (instead of
mere inspection). There is evidence, however, that the
specificities of personal social services are not always taken into
account if it comes to introducing market values and mechanisms.
Due to this development it becomes essential to promote more
adequate criteria for quality standards in the very field of
personal social services. The challenge is to maintain a certain
standard of service provision while at the same time reconsidering
the preconditions for defining quality. This will imply the search
for a consensus between allegedly diverging approaches, i.e.
between their different basic concepts, aims and standards. Given
the social and economic context within which these developments are
taking place, the focus of the contributions is on their critical
assessment in different European countries. An overview is given
about national developments in the areas of care for older persons
and other social services. The contributors from Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,
and the UK look at how and by whom quality is defined and what
challenges the actors of the traditionally mixed economy of
personal social services are meeting. Empirical evidence about user
involvement and satisfaction is given but also theoretical
reasoning about the impact of business approaches on a "pubic
good". Thus, the book tries to fill an important gap in practice,
research and policy-making concerning personal social services and
quality issues.
First published in 1997, this volume is about the challenge of
introducing business-originated concepts of quality assurance,
personal social services are currently confronted with all over
Europe. Undoubtedly, the new orientation towards a more
business-like approach in social welfare settings will raise
professionalism, "client-orientation" and controlling (instead of
mere inspection). There is evidence, however, that the
specificities of personal social services are not always taken into
account if it comes to introducing market values and mechanisms.
Due to this development it becomes essential to promote more
adequate criteria for quality standards in the very field of
personal social services. The challenge is to maintain a certain
standard of service provision while at the same time reconsidering
the preconditions for defining quality. This will imply the search
for a consensus between allegedly diverging approaches, i.e.
between their different basic concepts, aims and standards. Given
the social and economic context within which these developments are
taking place, the focus of the contributions is on their critical
assessment in different European countries. An overview is given
about national developments in the areas of care for older persons
and other social services. The contributors from Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden,
and the UK look at how and by whom quality is defined and what
challenges the actors of the traditionally mixed economy of
personal social services are meeting. Empirical evidence about user
involvement and satisfaction is given but also theoretical
reasoning about the impact of business approaches on a "pubic
good". Thus, the book tries to fill an important gap in practice,
research and policy-making concerning personal social services and
quality issues.
New public health governance arrangements under the coalition
government have wide reaching implications for the delivery of
health inequality interventions. Through the framework of
understanding health inequalities as a 'wicked problem' the book
develops an applied approach to researching, understanding and
addressing these by drawing on complexity theory. Case studies
illuminate the text, illustrating and discussing the issues in real
life terms and enabling public health, health promotion and health
policy students at postgraduate level to fully understand and
address the complexities of health inequalities. The book is a
valuable resource on current UK public health practice for
academics, researchers and public health practitioners.
This book is in essence concerned with the quest for rationality in
decision-making, and is founded on the premise that improvements in
the machinery of decision-making can actually lead to better
decisions. The numerous initiatives of the 1960s and 1970s
established specifically to foster greater policy coordination
(notably the Central Policy Review Staff or 'Think Tank') had, by
the beginning of the 1980s, fallen foul of an altogether changed
political climate, in which policy formation was increasingly
determined by the pressures of the marketplace, rather than by the
pursuit of rationally-determined consensual goals. Paradoxically,
however, this process has led, in turn, to renewed interest in the
possibilities of interdepartmental policy coordination, at both
centre and periphery, and in Joint Approaches to Social Policy the
authors seek to provide a clear understanding of what the reality,
rather than the rhetoric, of policy coordination actually entails.
They endeavour to familiarise policy-makers at all levels with the
basic conceptual tools necessary for successful policy
coordination.
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