Dignity in street-level bureaucracies: beyond reason, balance and pragmatism

Dignity in street-level bureaucracies: beyond reason, balance and pragmatism

A talk by Professor Tony Evans, Royal Holloway. Chair: Dr Jonathan Patterson, St Edmund Hall

The first event of the ‘Bureaucracy and Human Dignity‘ seminar series.

Public service bureaucracies are messy organisations. Bureaucrats work within policies that are confused and confusing, and are expected to use their judgement to make services work. This is the picture presented by Street Level Bureaucracy theory, which argues that good street-level bureaucrats are reasonable, balanced and pragmatic. This sweeping analysis of public services, however, doesn’t take account of the different relationships between policy and service in different areas of public provision. In some areas, policies constitute services. Dignity entails acting in line with one’s commitments and in a way that is appropriate to circumstances. They may be the rules by which benefits are allocated. In other areas, policies are a looser framework, within which decisions have to be made, such as policing; and in other areas, particularly professional welfare services, policies are more about enabling provision than specifying what should be done. In all of these areas, different forms of judgement are appropriate. One may emphasise procedural correctness, another the right outcome, and another meeting particular commitments. In each type of service, the idea of one global, right way of thinking and acting is misplaced, and ignores the dignity of particular roles and requirements in different fields. Furthermore, in most public services—particularly welfare services—practitioners have to move through these three forms of policy relationship and judgement, in order to provide a service. My argument is that, to do this, practitioners have to use reason, and balance, and pragmatism, but not as some abstract standard of decision-making; rather, as elements in the grammar of everyday service provision.

The online event is free and open for all. Registration is required.

Contact:
Las Casas Institute
lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk