Cover The Marketisation of Welfare-to-Work in Ireland
The Marketisation of Welfare-to-Work in Ireland
Governing Activation at the Street-Level
Author:
Michael McGann

FIVE: Remodelling agency at the street-level

Author:
Michael McGann
Publication Date:
20 Mar 2023
Pages:
104–138
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447367079.ch005
Open access
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The experiences of service-users and approaches of frontline staff showed that the model of support delivered under quasi-market conditions was distinctly more workfarist in orientation than the type of support that was provided by not-for-profit organisations in other parts of Ireland’s mixed economy of activation. So why did quasi-marketisation produce these policy effects? How did JobPath’s procurement model – competitive tendering, price-bidding, and performance-based contracting – spill over into organisational practices to adjust the balance between the enabling and demanding elements of activation? This chapter zooms out from the micro-level of caseworker-client interactions to consider issues of organisational dynamics and contracts’ recruitment practices and performance measurement regimes. In so doing, the chapter draws on the Irish case to engage with wider debates about the disciplining effects of managerialism and performance measurement on frontline discretion. It also offers a commentary on the ambiguous ‘professional’ status of activation work and the role of marketisation in contributing to the de-skilling and de-unionisation of employment services staff. The chapter develops the argument that marketisation reshapes agency at the street-level through both a politics of professionalism and politics of discretion

The experiences of service-users and approaches of frontline staff discussed in Chapter Four showed that the model of employment support delivered under quasi-market conditions was distinctly more workfarist in orientation than the type of support that was provided by not-for-profit organisations in other parts of Ireland’s mixed economy of activation. The JobPath model may not have been especially workfarist when measured against quasi-markets in other liberal welfare states. But it was nonetheless a significant departure from how the community organisations delivering LES were working with the long-term unemployed. So why did quasi-marketisation produce these policy effects? How did JobPath’s procurement model – competitive tendering, price-bidding, and performance-based contracting – spill over into organisational practices to adjust the balance between the enabling and demanding elements of activation?

These are the core questions addressed in this chapter, which zooms out from the micro-level of caseworker-client interactions to consider issues of organisational dynamics and the recruitment practices and performance measurement regimes of JobPath and LES organisations. In so doing, the chapter draws on the Irish case to engage with wider debates about the disciplining effects of managerialism and performance measurement on frontline discretion (Dias and Maynard-Moody, 2007; Brodkin, 2011; Soss et al, 2013; Caswell and Høybye-Mortensen, 2015; van Berkel and Knies, 2016; O’Sullivan et al, 2019). It also offers a commentary on the ambiguous ‘professional’ status of activation work (van Berkel and van der Aa, 2012; Nothdurfter, 2016). In particular, the second part of the chapter focuses on how the procurement of employment services via price-bidding and competitive tendering fractures the kinds of occupational backgrounds and normative understandings that street-level workers bring to their work (Schram, 2012; Schram and Silverman, 2012; Greer et al, 2017; O’Sullivan et al, 2021). The upshot is what Noordegraaf terms ‘controlled professionalism’, as workers are managed not as professionals with recognised qualifications and skills but as ‘employees with clear roles and responsibilities in turning organisational inputs – money, resources – into tangible results’ (2015: 191).

The chapter develops the argument that both the disciplining effects of performance measurement and the fracturing effects of quasi-marketisation on the ‘professional’ identities of street-level workers are critical to understanding how marketisation reshapes agency at the street-level. It invokes the language of agency rather than the more conventionally-used term of ‘discretion’ (Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2000; Evans, 2016) – in the sense of autonomy or decision-latitude – to emphasise that the concern is as much with a ‘politics of professionalism’ as it is with a ‘politics of discretion’. Put simply, the choices that street-level workers make when putting policy into practice are shaped as much from below by their internal ‘moral dispositions and working identities’ (Kaufman, 2020: 212) as they are disciplined from above by systems of external accountability and performance measurement. This is not to say that the disciplining effects of performance measurement are inconsequential, far from it. Simply that performance measurement is only part, albeit a key part, of the story of how market governance reshapes agency in policy delivery.

Performance measurement and the politics of discretion

Research on the intersection between the two tracks of welfare reform frequently focuses on how ‘the disciplinary turn of the global workfare project has been achieved, in part, through the disciplining of street-level workers’ (Kaufman, 2020: 208). Key to this disciplining of street-level workers has been the rise of managerial surveillance and deployment of increasingly tighter forms of performance measurement to steer frontline behaviour (Dias and Maynard-Moody, 2007; Soss et al, 2013; Fuertes and Lindsay, 2016; Greer et al, 2017). Although performance measurement is often associated with the measurement of actors against specified targets reflecting organisational goals, there are several different dimensions to performance measurement. Lewis argues that performance measurement should be understood as a social structure involving a cascading ‘chain’ (2015: 9). The apex of this chain is the setting of policy and strategy by governments and organisations, and the decisions they make about what to value, the indicators that will be used to measure it, and the ‘system rules that attempt to measure what is valued’ (Lewis, 2015: 9). All these are then signalled to the ‘the measured’ who respond to measurement criteria and targets based on the understandings they develop from a variety of sources of the social structure of performance measurement in which they are embedded.

Approached as social structures in this way, performance measurement systems involve far more than systems for quantifying the processes, outputs, or outcomes produced by individuals or organisations. Among other things, they comprise the information management systems used to record data; the indicators by which people and organisations are measured (and whether their purpose is to determine payments, benchmark performance, or merely convey information); the rewards and punishments (financial, reputational) that are contingent on measured performance; and the performative role of performance measurement within organisational cultures. The intensity of performance measurement systems is therefore a function of not just the number of metrics or the scale of targets that are set. It also depends on the administrative burdens and transaction costs associated with recording performance data as well as the degree of financial, managerial, reputational, or social pressure on the ‘measured’ to perform.

In quasi-markets, the ‘chain of performance measurement’ (Lewis, 2015: 9) extends all the way from the government purchaser to the organisations that are contracted, to the staff working at the frontline. This is insofar as organisations which are held accountable for adhering to minimum servicing standards or which are paid by outcomes ‘will in one way or another send signals to workers about the performance expected form them’ (van Berkel and Knies, 2016: 63). In this way, the use of market governance instruments to steer delivery organisations funnels into the use of corporate governance instruments (targets, management by objectives) by organisations to internally direct their staff.

‘Supervised’ discretion

A core question about performance measurement concerns how it alters what people do. Critics argue that street-level workers have become so subject to ‘direction and surveillance from managers, that discretion has all but disappeared’ (Evans, 2016: 281). This is a little too fatalistic. The concern is not so much that street-level workers no longer have any autonomy but that the measurement of their performance has become so ubiquitous that they make different decisions in light of their awareness ‘of being observed and evaluated’ (Soss et al, 2011b: i226). In other words, performance measurement reshapes frontline decision-making not through overriding but manipulating discretion. An illustration of this ‘reactive conformance’ (Asselineau et al, 2022: 10) was provided by one advisor, who described the pressures staff were under to set tasks for jobseekers each meeting just so that advisors were seen to be progressing clients:

‘Part of our job, is to every time you meet the client, set a new task. And it can be as small as add something new to a CV … But because you’re expected to do a task every time you speak to someone, you can be kind of just giving them a silly task for the sake of it.’ (Carl, JobPath Advisor)

The ‘tasks’ were the activities in clients’ PPPs, which were recorded on tabs in providers’ information management systems. Organisational managers could view these client files and run reports on advisors’ caseloads, which they regularly did:

‘I would do checks on people’s customers. Their journeys, what they’re doing, what interventions have been put in place, what information, advice and guidance has been offered.’ (Trish, JobPath Manager)

‘There are structures in place, and we have to do x amount of; whether it be your tasks, put in the goals … Your centre manager ultimately at the end of the day is watching us.’ (Saoirse, JobPath Advisor)

In these examples, it was frontline workers’ adherence to work process standards rather than their achievement of outcomes that was being monitored. The focus was on activities and holding workers procedurally accountable for complying with minimum servicing standards. In terms of clients’ PPPs, advisors were expected to routinely “be sticking in a task of some sort” (Carl, JobPath Advisor) as “evidence that you’re helping the customer to progress” (Trish, JobPath Manager). This administrative record could then be used as proof to the government purchaser that “here’s their progression plan, here’s what they’ve done” (Maria, JobPath Manager); that clients had not been left idle. However, the extent to which this was monitored resulted in advisors setting tasks they openly admitted were futile, as the activity monitoring of staff cascaded into the activation of claimants. As Carl explained: “Every three weeks or so, you should be sticking in a task … That stuff is fine to do when you are giving them worthwhile stuff to do. But some of the stuff you’re just creating for the sake of putting in a task” (Carl, JobPath Advisor).

“I don’t think its progression at all; it’s the illusion of progression”, admitted Carl. It was a sentiment echoed by several LES mediators, who were similarly frustrated by the extent to which they were obligated to record data on information management systems so that work processes could be audited and verified. This shifted the emphasis of meetings away from the provision of employment guidance towards the documentation of administrative conformance:

‘The whole administration of seeing people and recording stuff on BOMi [information management system] … making sure it’s updated with information; I’m finding that all of this is detracting then from “What are we doing to get people off the dole?” … It’s like feed the Tamagotchi and forget about the core reason of why we are there.’ (Karen, LES Mediator)

Despite the parallels in the activity monitoring of JobPath and LES staff, the survey data did point to significant differences in the intensity of oversight they were subject to. JobPath managers appeared to pay closer attention to what their staff were doing on a more regular basis, with 66 per cent of JobPath staff surveyed reporting that they strongly agreed that their ‘supervisor knows a lot about the work I do day-to-day’ (see Table 5.1). This compared with just 30 per cent of LES respondents and the responses of JobPath staff also indicated that they were more likely to defer to their supervisors when unsure of what to do. When asked if they referred issues not covered by procedural guidelines to their supervisor, 56 per cent of JobPath staff strongly agreed that they did. This compared with just 26 per cent of LES staff, who were more ambivalent about the extent of hierarchical supervision in their workplaces. Indeed, one in five (21 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed that the lines of authority were not clear in their workplace whereas almost 90 per cent of JobPath staff disagreed or strongly disagreed with the view that the lines of authority were unclear in their work. These differences in responses were all statistically significant, indicating that JobPath staff perceived that they worked under greater managerial scrutiny than their LES counterparts.

Table 5.1:

Supervisory oversight of frontline staff
The lines of authority are not clear in my work JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 111)
• Strongly agree 2.6% 11.7%
• Agree 5.2% 9.0%
• Neither 2.6% 14.4%
• Disagree 33.8% 40.5%
• Strongly disagree 55.8% 24.3%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
My supervisor knows a lot about the work I do day-to-day JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 110)
• Strongly agree 66.2% 30.0%
• Agree 19.5% 44.5%
• Neither 2.6% 10.0%
• Disagree 5.2% 9.1%
• Strongly disagree 6.5% 6.4%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
When I come across something not covered by the procedural guide, I refer it to my supervisor JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 110)
• Strongly agree 55.8% 26.4%
• Agree 42.9% 52.7%
• Neither 0.0% 13.6%
• Disagree 0.0% 6.4%
• Strongly disagree 1.3% 0.9%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Source: Adapted from McGann (2022a)

Targets and outcomes measurement

Turning from activity monitoring to outcomes and targets, the hope is that performance measurement will motivate people to work in more productive ways. As Behn argues, the real ‘reason that managers set performance targets is to motivate, and thus to improve’ (2003: 588). Yet performance measurement does not just result in the same things being done more efficiently or more effectively; workers also start ‘to do different things’ (van Berkel and Knies, 2016: 64). This arises from how ‘the pressures of competition, the prospects of incurring rewards or penalties, the awareness that one is being closely monitored’ (Soss et al, 2013: 126) can all work to reshape what Brodkin term’s the ‘calculus of street-level choice’ (2011: i259). Recognising this brings into view the political effects of performance measurement, and its potential to bring about far-reaching changes in the distribution of benefits, resources, and sanctions that street-level workers enact on the ground.

In the case of welfare-to-work, a core concern is the preoccupation with job placement and off-benefits metrics as the key indicators of performance. For instance, Soss, Fording, and Schram’s body of research on the intersection between performance measurement and sanctioning in the US state of Florida points to a correlation between the intensification of performance measurement and the sanctioning of welfare-to-work clients. This is both over time across the state, and between organisations subject to different degrees of performance pressure (Soss et al, 2011a, 2011b, 2013). Following the introduction of a more performance-driven welfare-to-work programme during the early 2000s (in terms of placement targets and payments tied to outcomes), they found a rise in sanctioning at the state level. Moreover, programme participants were more likely to be sanctioned if they were clients of for-profit providers rather than not-for-profit organisations Yet, when interviewed, very few of the case managers that Soss and colleagues spoke with expressed any belief in the efficacy of sanctions. Rather, their accounts of why they used sanctions suggested that they turned to sanctions as a ‘last resort’ and in the face of performance pressures. With little formal training and few resources to address their clients’ problems, case managers turned ‘to the most basic threat’ they could wield and out of frustration that they were ‘being held accountable while the client is not’ (Soss et al, 2011b: i224).

In a British context, Redman and Fletcher have shown how a shift towards measuring the performance of Jobcentre Plus offices based on ‘off-benefit flows’ partly contributed to a rise in sanctioning rates within local offices. This was insofar as it was simpler for advisors to meet targets by ‘finding ways to sanction claimants and/or dissuade claims’ (Redman and Fletcher, 2021: 13), rather than focusing on moving people off benefits through supporting them into work.

Beyond sanctions, performance measurement systems may induce street-level workers to prioritise workfarist approaches through their so-called ‘tunnel vision’ effects: when actors respond to targets by zoning in on those aspects of their work that are measured at the expense of other valuable, but unmeasured, aspects of their job. The problem here for attempts to steer discretion through targets and performance measurement is the difficulty of specifying which aspects of frontline work matter, and capturing those in quantitative measures (Brodkin, 2008). If job placements or appointment attendance are primarily what is counted, street-level workers may focus their energies on ensuring clients fulfil appointments and search for whatever (low-paid) jobs are available. Meanwhile, interventions which might narrow people’s distance from employment without guaranteeing a job, such as referrals to flanking social services, may become neglected; especially if there is uncertainty over whether actions will deliver tangible outcomes within the reporting timeframes of contracts.

The upshot is what Dias and Maynard-Moody term a ‘performance paradox’ (2007: 189). Behaviour is redirected towards the achievement of short-term outcomes ‘at the expense of longer-term’ (Talbot, 2010: 191) policy goals. The most well-documented performance paradox in the context of welfare-to-work delivery is the issue of providers and frontline staff adapting to performance measurement by ‘creaming’ their most job ready clients and ‘parking’ those they perceive as being more difficult cases. Jobseekers thus end up being targeted ‘in inverse proportion to need’ (Greer et al, 2018: 1429) with the result that public resources are withheld from the very cohorts that governments most want to activate into employment.

‘Unseen’ work

The myopic, tunnel vision effects of performance measurement are captured by the adage what gets measured gets treasured. The problem is that ‘not everything that counts can be counted’ (Asselineau et al, 2022: 7). So, critical dimensions of performance go ‘unseen’ (Brodkin, 2008: 323), as the frontline staff interviewed for this book frequently observed.

Among LES staff especially, there was widespread criticism that the targets specified in their contracts were “horrendous” (Trevor, LES Coordinator) and “pure nonsense” (Michael, LES Mediator). This was not in the sense that they paid little heed to them. To the contrary, they repeatedly reported that “chasing the job numbers is part of the job” (Siobhan, LES Mediator). Otherwise, if “targets were down … we’re in trouble with our contract basically” (Fiona, LES Manager). LES staff claimed to be all too frequently reminded of this since the DSP took over responsibility for employment services contracting following the demise of FÁS. One manager described the DSP as coming “in like a big boot” (Laura, LES Manager) in terms of its approach to contract management. A mediator from another LES organisation reflected on the parallels between the use of sanctions to activate jobseekers and the threats of contract withdrawal faced by employment services providers:

‘You hear in the ether about LES that are failing to reach targets, and they’ve been reduced to six-month contracts. So, it’s a sense of fear. What I actually find ironic is that the same fear that the Pathways to Work process has generated within clients is also getting more and more replicated within the organisations that are supposed to be servicing those clients.’ (Michael, LES Mediator)

Besides the pressures to meet targets, LES staffs’ main criticism was that the target they were set seemed to have been “pulled out of the air” (Eileen, LES Coordinator). It was a uniform target by which the performance of all LES was measured – of placing at least 30 per cent of their caseload into full-time employment of indefinite duration. The target took no account of discrepancies in the profile of clients on different office’s caseloads, nor was there any recognition of structural differences in the various labour market contexts that the different LES operated in. Hence, from the perspective of frontline staff, whether targets were achieved was more a reflection of arbitrary differences in “the breakdown of the caseload rather than the service or the abilities of the individual” (Michael, LES Mediator). Employment services staff were also acutely aware that other significant dimensions of frontline work, such as supporting people to return to education or gain work experience as a step towards reintegration were “just completely undervalued” (Michelle, LES Mediator). Indeed, they were actively disincentivised:

‘The target of full-time employment was set by the powers that be to get people off [payments] … That’s nothing to do with the stepping-stone of somebody going from unemployed with an addiction, to part-time work and stable, to maybe, if they kept that going, full-time work. That whole life process doesn’t take people off the Live Register, so it doesn’t get counted … What we do is you keep an eye on the targets … And when you are doing that then you have the space to look after the more vulnerable.’ (Fiona, LES Manager)

Embedded in Fiona’s comment is a view of targets as thresholds to be satisfied – “to keep officialdom off your back” (Fiona, LES Manager) – rather than exceeded. Indeed, there were few incentives for LES staff to focus on job placements once their 30 per cent target had been met, particularly given the well-known problem of the ‘ratchet effect’: where people try to avoid over-reaching their targets so as ‘to avoid too high targets in the future’ (Talbot, 2010: 191). Confidence in being able to meet their targets gave LES staff scope to explore other progression options that weren’t officially measured. This was less possible for JobPath staff, whose targets were “not set in stone” but fluctuated monthly “according to what’s going on out there in the employment marketplace” (Norelle, Employer Liaison, JobPath).

In comparison to LES staff, JobPath staff displayed a less critical orientation towards targets. This perhaps reflected the fact ‘that few had any experience of delivering employment services prior to JobPath, or under conditions where their success in placing clients into jobs was not closely monitored’ (McGann, 2022a: 83). They were, to an extent, habituated to targets with many of the advisors interviewed for this book having previously worked in sectors such as retail, sales, and telemarketing where targets were the norm:

‘Obviously because I’m from a telemarketing background – it was all targets – I suit the job well.’ (Joanna, JobPath Employer Liaison and ex-advisor)

‘[M]aybe it’s because I come from retail and I come from a target driven area, I do focus on trying to get the jobs in and trying to hit them targets. And I know there’s other people that just don’t really … they just won’t chase, chase, chase.’ (Carl, JobPath Advisor)

One or two acknowledged feeling “very conflicted” about the fact that “when you whittle it down really, it comes down to … the numbers of jobs that we get” (Saoirse, JobPath Advisor). There were “two sides to the business”, as one advisor put it, that required carefully balancing their “duty of care to the clients and to the community” against the fact “that I have to reach my job targets” (Anna, JobPath Advisor). But, generally, JobPath staff accepted the logic of performance targets as a managerial tool that “keeps you on your toes, which is good” (Liam, JobPath Advisor). Moreover, the use of performance measurement in this way extended beyond tracking whether individual workers had achieved their personal targets. Managers would also seek to motivate staff by using performance targets as means to catalyse internal competition and “a friendly rivalry” (Carl, JobPath Advisor) between staff for peer group recognition.

Occasionally, staff’s performance as “the one who got the most jobs in the last quarter” or month would be rewarded materially in the form of “voucher just to say thank you” (Anna, JobPath Advisor). However, the principal currency of recognition was the symbolic conferral of status through “accolades like employee of the month” (Norelle, JobPath Employer Liaison). As one manager elaborated:

‘They are reasonably competitive. It’s not about the office target I don’t think. It’s about beating [their co-workers] … That’s where I would have the fun with them … I would go “What time was your last appointment? [Name], that was a fantastic result you had today, or yesterday …you better leave early.” Then I’ll go silent. Next thing you’ll hear, “But I did [target]”. “Did you so? I didn’t notice that.” … So, we have a bit of banter about it, and they openly want to say what they achieved this week.’ (Maria, JobPath Manager)

Commodified performance

The survey data reported in Table 5.2 point to further sources of difference between the performance measurement regimes that JobPath and LES staff worked under. One particular point of difference is the degree to which JobPath staff were cognisant of ‘the commodity value of their performance’ (McGann, 2022a: 85). This in the sense that they took note of actions with clients that would produce payable employment outcomes and reported that their employer paid attention to the financial returns that they personally generated for the organisation.

Both JobPath and LES staff reported that numerical targets influenced their work, with no significant differences in their responses. However, on questions addressing the financial implications of their performance for their employer, the differences in responses were far greater. For instance, when asked whether ‘more and more the objective in this job is to maximise the organisation’s financial outcomes’, 21 per cent of JobPath respondents agreed or strongly agreed that this was the case. A small majority (52 per cent) rejected this view, although this proportion paled in comparison to the 72 per cent of LES staff who rejected the idea that ‘more and more the objective in this job is to maximise the organisation’s financial outcomes’.

Likewise, when asked whether they were aware that their organisation paid attention to the income they generated by placing clients, over 80 per cent JobPath respondents – but only 9 per cent of LES staff – agreed or strongly agreed that this was the case. The responses of JobPath staff also suggested that they took such financial factors into greater consideration when determining what actions to take with clients. For instance, 59 per cent of JobPath respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they ‘do tend to take note of actions with clients that will generate a payable outcome or reach an employment outcome target for the office’. This compared with just 33 per cent of LES respondents. Indeed, only 14 per cent of JobPath staff reported that they did not take note of actions with clients that would generate a payable outcome or reach an outcome target whereas 45 per cent of LES staff claimed not to pay attention to whether their actions would lead to an outcome payment or the satisfaction of a performance target.

Table 5.2:

Targets and performance measurement
In my job, I am NOT influenced by numerical targets JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 111)
• Strongly agree 7.8% 10.8%
• Agree 22.1% 23.4%
• Neither 18.2% 25.2%
• Disagree 45.5% 32.4%
• Strongly disagree 6.5% 8.1%
p = 0.47 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
I do tend to take note of actions with clients that will generate a payable outcome/reach an employment outcome target for the office JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 110)
• Strongly agree 11.8% 8.2%
• Agree 47.4% 24.5%
• Neither 26.3% 22.7%
• Disagree 10.5% 25.5%
• Strongly disagree 3.9% 19.1%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
I am aware that my organisation pays attention to the income I generate by placing clients JobPath

(n = 76)		 LES

(n = 110)
• Strongly agree 25.0% 3.6%
• Agree 55.3% 5.5%
• Neither 10.5% 26.4%
• Disagree 5.3% 23.6%
• Strongly disagree 3.9% 40.9%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
More and more the objective in this job is to maximise the organisation’s financial outcomes JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 111)
• Strongly agree 6.5% 1.8%
• Agree 14.3% 6.3%
• Neither 27.3% 19.8%
• Disagree 41.6% 36.9%
• Strongly disagree 10.4% 35.1%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Source: Adapted from McGann (2022a)

For JobPath staff, the principal means of achieving targets and generating business revenue is through achieving job placements. So, one logical consequence of advisors’ heightened awareness that frontline actions carried financial value – that was being monitored by their employer – could be a narrow service delivery focus on rapid job placements. Indeed, this was a concern often expressed by LES mediators and service-users about the outcomes-based payment model underpinning JobPath. Namely, that it resulted in advisors “looking for the quick fixes, get them into Tesco’s because I have target” (Catherine, LES Mediator) or that, as one service-user put it, “You could come in with a PhD and be told that you have to go work in McDonald’s” (Jim, service-user, 40s, Dublin).

To further explore this intersection between the commodification of advisors’ performance and a ‘work-first’ orientation towards clients, a correlation analysis was run using Spearman’s rank-order correlation to test for any associations between the items on frontline workers’ internalisation of the commodity value of their performance, and the measures discussed in Chapter Four on whether frontline staff, and the agencies that they worked for, prioritised rapid job placement over helping jobseekers to gain the skills and qualifications needed to obtain their preferred job. As Table 5.3 shows, there was a moderate but significant correlation between the degree to which respondents agreed that their organisation paid attention to the income they generated by placing clients and the two ‘work-first’ measures on whether the more important goal of their agency was to help clients get jobs as quickly as possible and if they would generally advise clients to take a low-skill, low-paying job rather than remain on benefits and wait for a better opportunity. Likewise, there was also a correlation between respondents’ answers on these two ‘work-first’ measures and the extent to which they reported taking note of actions with clients that would generate a payable outcome or reach a target. The degree to which frontline staff reported that the objective of their job was increasingly to maximise financial outcomes for their organisations was also correlated with whether frontline staff perceived that the more important goal of their agency was to help clients get jobs as quickly as possible, although it was not significantly correlated with whether advisors would recommend clients to take a low-skill, low-paying job.

In short, the data suggests that it is not performance targets per se that orientates street-level workers towards workfarist strategies but the extent to which they are aware of their actions carrying financial worth for their employer. Seeing clients as commodities with exchange value corresponds with a workfarist disposition towards encouraging claimants to sell their labour to employers as quickly as possible.

Table 5.3:

Associations between commodity value of performance and ‘work-first’ disposition
Whether more important agency goal is to (1) help clients get jobs as quickly as possible or (7) raise jobseekers’ education or skill levels to get the job they want in the future Whether would advise clients to (1) take a low-skill, low-paying job or (7) stay on benefits and wait for better opportunity
Aware that organisation pays attention to income generated by placing clients (1. Strongly agree to 5. Strongly disagree) rs = 0.32 rs = 0.23
p < 0.001 p = 0.002
Take note of actions with clients that will generate a payable outcome/reach a target (1. Strongly agree to 5. Strongly disagree) rs = 0.26 rs = 0.16
p < 0.001 p = 0.031
Objective of job is increasingly to maximise the organisation’s financial outcomes (1. Strongly agree to 5. Strongly disagree) rs = 0.20 rs = 0.13
p = 0.007 p = 0.093

Note: Adapted from McGann (2022a)

The politics of professionalism

The preceding discussion has demonstrated that one critical way in which quasi-market implementation structures reshape the agency of frontline workers is through the new systems of performance measurement that they embed within delivery organisations. The increasing accountability of workers to targets and more intensive forms of managerial oversight and performance monitoring disciplines discretion by strategically manipulating decision-making towards the achievement of organisationally defined targets and ends. However, these are not the only ways in which governance reforms potentially remodel frontline agency and choice. Other important aspects include the effects of governance reforms on the composition of the frontline workforce and the growing use of ‘standardisation tools’ (Mik-Meyer, 2018: e283) such as assessment protocols and profiling instruments, the use of which has become near ubiquitous in the delivery of welfare-to-work. This has important implications for the extent to which frontline work essentially involves the performance of administrative routines rather than a ‘professional’ practice (Caswell et al, 2010; Høybye-Mortensen, 2015; Mik-Meyer, 2018), as the remainder of this chapter considers beginning with a discussion of ‘professionalism’ as a concept and its relevance for activation work.

‘Professionalism’ in activation work

Twenty years ago, Bovens and Zouridis had already described welfare agencies as ‘screen-level’ bureaucracies where contacts with citizens largely ran ‘through or in the presence of a computer screen’ (2002: 177). This was not just as means of storing information but as systems for making decisions by ‘entering responses to standardised questions into a computer programme’ (Marston, 2006: 91).

For some scholars, the processing of decisions via standardised instruments can denote a form of professional practice if such tools encode evidenced-based standards (van Berkel, 2017; van Berkel et al, 2021). Ponnert and Svensson associate such tools with the ‘audit society’ and the accountability demands of the evidence-based movement in social work ‘to demonstrate all the steps that have been taken, to follow manuals and to systematically strive for best practice’ (2015: 588). Other scholars are more critical, arguing that standardised decision protocols constrain possibilities for agency by concealing the complexity of cases and filtering discretion through ‘a belt of restrictions’ (Høybye-Mortensen, 2015: 612). Of further concern is the potential for decision-support systems to pave the way for case managers to be de-skilled, replacing ‘part of the skill set that a case manager might otherwise need’ (Considine et al, 2011: 821). Organisations may then be emboldened to hire workers from a broad range of backgrounds to perform work that previously would have been done by social work (or other allied) professionals. For instance, in their study of the effects of ten years of quasi-marketisation on the frontline delivery of employment services in Australia, Considine and colleagues found that not only had IT systems come to dictate more and more of the work; the people delivering employment services had also become much younger and far less skilled. Over the period 1998 to 2008 the proportion holding a university degree declined from 39 to 24 per cent, the proportion aged under 35 years of age rose from 29 to 42 per cent, and the proportion who were trade union members dropped off a cliff to just 7 per cent (Considine et al, 2015). Put simply, quasi-marketisation had precipitated a de-skilling and de-collectivisation of the frontline workforce that was allied to a routinisation of the case management task.

One way of interpreting such workforce changes is through the concepts of ‘controlled’ (Noordegraaf, 2015) or ‘organisational’ (Evetts, 2013) professionalism, which Evetts defines as a discourse of control involving ‘the increased standardisation of work procedures’ and organisation of work through ‘externalised forms of regulation and accountability measures such as target-setting and performance review’ (2013: 787). Clearly the intensification of performance measurement feeds into organisational professionalism, although it also encompasses a broader set of dynamics including processes of standardisation and de-skilling.

Organisational professionalism stands opposed to more normative concepts of ‘occupational’ (Evetts, 2011) or ‘pure’ (Noordegraaf, 2007: 765) professionalism; models that assume trust in practitioners from both clients and employers, and which are based on ‘discretionary judgement and assessment by practitioners of complex cases’ (Evetts, 2013: 787). The work of occupational professionals is coordinated through ‘collegial authority’ (Ponnert and Svensson, 2015: 593) and the cultivation of ‘a professional “habitus”’ (Noordegraaf, 2015: 191) through training and adherence to occupationally defined codes of conduct. The most proximate examples are the legal and medical professions, although few occupations today constitute professions in this ‘classic’ (Noordegraaf, 2007: 765) sense. Rather, contemporary occupational life is characterised by varied modes of ‘hybrid professionalism’ where managerial and occupational systems for coordinating work intersect. Even in expert fields such as medicine, practitioners perform their work through combining ‘the managerial tools of the organisation they work in with the disciplinary knowledge of their profession’ (Mik-Meyer, 2018: e282).

Notwithstanding the hybrid nature of professionalism today, whether activation work meets the conditions of a profession is doubtful. This is despite the widening of activation to groups of citizens with more differentiated needs and resulting demands on caseworkers to make decisions about increasingly complex cases (Rice, 2017). For this reason, some scholars argue that activation work ‘should be organised and managed as professional work’ (van Berkel et al, 2021: 2) or even restricted to ‘trained social workers … given the complexity of the employment-services task and needs of clients’ (Greer et al, 2017: 110). This is indeed the case in some Nordic countries, where trained social workers continue to account for a sizeable proportion of the employment services workforce (Sadeghi and Fekjær, 2018). This has prompted much debate about the fit between ‘activation work’ and ‘professional social work values’ (Nothdurfter, 2016: 435) and whether programmes underpinned by sanctions and conditionality are compatible ‘with a professional work (or, at least, social work) repertoire’ (van Berkel and van der Aa, 2012: 497).

Yet, in many countries, social workers play only a marginal role in the delivery of activation. Instead, employment services are delivered by workers that van Berkel and colleagues characterise as ‘professionals without a profession’ (2010: 462). This refers to the fact that they lack any common accredited training, shared vocational association, or ‘officially recognized body of knowledge to guide professional decision-making’ (van Berkel and van der Aa, 2012: 499). This is especially true in liberal welfare regimes with quasi-market implementation structures (Schram and Silverman, 2012; Greer et al, 2017; O’Sullivan et al, 2021). For instance, in a study of welfare-to-work reforms in Florida, Schram and Silverman found that quasi-marketisation precipitated a shift towards ‘a more deskilled’ workforce often comprised of ‘“recovered” former welfare recipients’ (Schram and Silverman, 2012: 131). Indeed, barely any of the case managers interviewed for the study were trained in social work or related fields. Instead, their backgrounds were in business and management, or they qualified to work as case managers ‘by virtue of their own experience with the system’ (Schram and Silverman, 2012: 134). This was also the case among the JobPath staff interviewed for this book. For instance, three of the advisors were recruited to work in JobPath from the Live Register: “I was a customer … I saw what was going on and I was like ‘I could actually do this’ and I asked about it. It was in a different office, and I knew the office was opening in my local area … and I applied, and I got it” (Lisa, JobPath Advisor).

From quasi-marketisation to de-skilling?

So, why does competitive procurement and performance-based contracting tend to produce these effects on the frontline workforce? There are several mechanisms, some of which may be intended while others lead to de-skilling in less direct ways. First, outsourcing enables existing workforces comprised of unionised and professionalised workers to be bypassed in policy implementation. This may be deliberately intended – to weaken labour autonomy and reduce the capacity of social work professionals to thwart workfarist policies (Bredgaard and Larsen, 2007; Larsen, 2013). However, de-skilling may also be driven by more pragmatic considerations of cost containment and ‘the uncertainty of contracting’ (Greer et al, 2017: 109).

Employment services are labour intensive. Staffing accounts for the lion’s share of delivery costs. So, when contracts are awarded on price and payments are mainly based on results, there is an embedded incentive for contractors to cut their staffing costs. First, to be competitive when bidding under conditions of price ‘squeezing’ (Greer et al, 2017: 111) but second, to reduce the level of financial exposure they need to assume to manage contacts with ‘back-ended’ (Shutes and Taylor, 2014) payment models. This was one of the reasons why the DSP’s decision to replace LES contracts with competitively procured Local Area Employment Services was met with such political resistance. Community sector organisations feared that they “would be out of the game” (Brenda, LES Coordinator) since they would “not be able to compete financially with the big players” (Trevor, LES Coordinator). As a union official explained, with their high fixed costs “in the form of their staff and all of that”: “they may not be able to come in as a lowest bidder. And that would be worrying because obviously then you’d have a problem about job retention and conditions and all that” (Annette, Union Official).

Performance-based contracts essentially require providers to fund service delivery upfront: sinking investments into office space, IT infrastructure, and staff against uncertain outcome payments. The more leanly and cheaply they can staff their services, the greater their chances of outbidding competitors and reducing the level of risk they need to wear. Within this context, organisations may look to recruit less qualified workers from sectors accustomed to targets rather than experienced professionals with prior sectoral experience – particularly if some tasks can be performed using standardisation tools that make it easier for ‘untrained staff to carry out the task at a much lower cost’ (Considine et al, 2015: 57).

Table 5.4:

Use of assessment protocols
Use answers to standard CLIENT CLASSIFICATION (profiling) or checklist when deciding how to work with a client? JobPath

(n = 76)		 LES

(n = 108)
• Yes 69.7% 46.3%
• No 30.3% 53.7%




p = 0.002 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Influence of answers to standard set of assessment questions in determining what activities are recommended JobPath

(n = 74)		 LES

(n = 107)
• Not at all influential 9.5% 29.0%
• Somewhat influential 37.8% 43.9%
• Quite influential 31.1% 19.6%
• Very influential 21.6% 7.5%


p = 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)

There is evidence of organisations adapting to performance-based contracting in this way in the context of Ireland’s quasi-market in employment services. As shown in Table 5.4, the use of client profiling instruments was far more widespread among JobPath than LES staff. Indeed, the majority (54 per cent) of LES staff reported that they did not use such instruments whereas 70 per cent of the JobPath staff surveyed claim to use client classification instruments when working with clients. Likewise, most (53 per cent) of the JobPath staff surveyed – but only 27 per cent of LES respondents – reported that the answers to standard assessment questions were ‘quite’ or ‘very influential’ in determining what activities they recommended to clients.

In follow-up interviews, JobPath staff elaborated on how they used assessment tools to “try and get the barriers out of” (Liam, JobPath Advisor) clients; especially during initial appointments, when they would run through questions on “things like literacy levels, computer skills, confidence levels, their attitudes towards learning and education” (Liam, JobPath Advisor). Each JobPath provider had a standardised assessment protocol of some sort that advisors reported using “to bring up the challenges and actions that you have to look at each appointment” (Paula, JobPath Advisor) and to develop progression plans with jobseekers. Indeed, several of the service-users interviewed for this book saw the administering of assessment protocols and completion of PPPs as synonymous:

‘I had to fill out this kind of questionnaire … It was all questions about myself; you know, how is my health and general kind of multiple-choice questions … I think it’s called the PPP.’ (Cormac, service-user, 40s, Limerick)

‘They had this PPP, which to me is just all metrics and numbers and graphs. I’m not sure how any of that helps me get a job, but they seemed keen to fill in these forms.’ (Padraig, service-user, 40s, Tipperary)

By itself, the use of profiling instruments ‘tells us little about the professional or administrative nature of activation work’ (van Berkel and van der Aa, 2012: 501). Much depends on how they are used and for what purposes. Indeed, such tools could conceivably enhance confidence in the ‘professionalism’ of activation work if they are used to render the basis of decision-making more transparent and accountable to professional standards rather than personal biases. However, this was not how service-users experienced their use. Rather, their perception was predominantly of a “box-ticking exercise” (Hannah, service-user, 50s, Cork) where the focus was on “only recording the information” (Niall, service-user, 30s, Clare) rather than understanding individual needs. There was a view that advisors “wouldn’t have known themselves even” (Niall, service-user, 30s, Clare) what the purpose of the questionaries was:

‘The assessment process was you sit beside this guy. He’s on a computer. He pulls up a screen with all these boxes to tick. So, it’s like, “Can you type?” Tick … “Do you have clothes to wear to an interview?” … I just felt a lot of the questions that he was asking, and ticking and ticking and ticking, there is no in-depth talk about what exactly each question entails.’ (Siobhan, service-user, 50s, Laois)

‘The person who was asking, he didn’t seem too sure of what he was doing. He just wanted to get the thing done. And the questions were so ambiguous … I kept saying, “I don’t know. There isn’t a yes or no to that one”. And he’d say, “Well, we’ll just put in this one”.’ (Laoise, service-user, 50s, Kilkenny)

Occupational fragmentation

Embedded in these criticisms of the use of assessment protocols was a perception that the advisors that service-users’ encountered “aren’t even qualified themselves” (Ray, service-user, 20s, Offaly) and that the “software system allows anyone to be a consultant” (Sarah, service-user, 40s, Limerick). In interviews, service-users recounted coming across advisors who themselves had “just come off the Dole … [and who’s] only experience had been to go through the process of being on one side of the desk” (Jim, service-user, 40s, Dublin). Some claimed to have applied to become advisors themselves, noting that “the basic requirement … was a Leaving [High-School] Certificate” (Cormac, service-user, 40s, Limerick).

While these criticisms of the competencies of advisors may have been coloured by service-users’ negative experiences of the programme, they resonate with the details of DSP inspection reports released under freedom of information to a group of journalists and researchers. Summarising the types of caseworkers described in the 26 inspection reports they obtained of contractors’ offices, Roche and Griffin observe that their backgrounds included ‘recruitment, phone shop sales, car sales, and bar work’ (2022: 11). The upshot, they argue, is the embedding of ‘naturalised ignorance’ at the frontline of activation and the absence of any ‘basic knowledge, education and training in professional [employment services] casework’ (Roche and Griffin, 2022: 11). The survey data collected for the research underpinning this book points to similar concerns about the experience and qualification levels of JobPath frontline staff.

As Table 5.5 shows, the proportion of frontline staff who reported having a university degree was 65 per cent among LES respondents but just 38 per cent among JobPath respondents. Indeed, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the JobPath staff reported that they had no post-secondary qualification. Moreover, the follow-up interviews suggested that LES staff often had tertiary qualifications in areas directly related to employment guidance. Most of the LES staff who were interviewed (7 out of 10) had worked in employment services for over 20 years. Most had also undertaken formal qualifications in Adult Guidance offered through Maynooth University’s Department of Adult and Community Education that included modules on models of guidance and counselling; applied guidance skills; case review; and developing a Quality of Work Life (Department of Adult and Community Education, 2020). Although not a pre-requisite for working in the sector, the course – developed initially in collaboration with FÁS – functioned as a certification of competency and steppingstone to advanced study that appeared to be widely recognised in the field. For instance, one mediator reported that they “did the Maynooth course” before going on to do a Masters in “leadership for the community and public sector” (Michelle, LES Mediator). Another went on to training in “psychotherapy and facilitation” and a subsequent “Masters in Personal and Management Coaching” (Angela, LES Mediator), while a third completed “an MSC in Guidance Counselling” after working in addiction services for 17 years (Catherine, LES Mediator).

So, although LES mediators were not professionally trained social workers per se, they resembled a quasi-professionalised workforce to the extent that professional development was valued in their field and there was accredited training available in a shared body of occupational practice. Conversely, JobPath advisors reported being trained “very much on the job” (Saoirse, JobPath Advisor) or through “two weeks’ training when we started” (Paula, JobPath Advisor). Few had worked in welfare or employment services for more than a few of years. This itself is not surprising, given JobPath only commenced in mid-2015. It does indicate, however, that providers recruited from outside the sector rather than hiring people with prior experience of working with claimants. This is further reflected in the sectors that JobPath and LES staff reported previously having worked in. For instance, just under a third (30 per cent) of the LES staff surveyed reported that they had previously worked in Health and Social Work, or Education – sectors that only 14 per cent of JobPath advisors had come from. A further 30 per cent of LES staff claimed to have previously worked in Administrative and Support Services. This was also a sector that a high proportion (17 per cent) of JobPath staff claimed to have previously worked in, although a further 26 per cent of JobPath staff reported that they had worked in Hospitality or Retail – two of the lowest-paid sectors in the Irish economy (Redmond, 2020) – before moving to employment services.

Table 5.5:

Age, qualification levels, and occupational backgrounds of workers
Age JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 112)
• Under 35 33.8% 3.6%
• 35–44 35.1% 13.4%
• 45–54 19.5% 48.2%
• 55 or over 11.7% 34.8%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Union member JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 111)
• Yes 0.0% 66.7%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Highest level of education JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 112)
• Upper secondary 23.4% 2.7%
• Third-level non-degree 39.0% 31.3%
• Bachelor’s degree 31.2% 37.5%
• Postgraduate degree 6.5% 27.7%
• Other 0.0% 0.9%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Years worked in welfare or employment services sector JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 112)
• Less than 1 year 5.2% 2.7%
• 1–5 years 83.1% 10.7%
• More than 5 years 11.7% 86.6%
p < 0.001 (Fisher’s Exact Test)
Industry worked in before employment services JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 112)
• First industry worked in 0.0% 7.1%
• Accommodation and food services (hospitality) 10.4% 0.9%
• Wholesale or retail trade 15.6% 3.6%
• Personal services 2.6% 0.9%
• Construction or manufacturing 2.6% 7.2%
• Transportation and storage 5.2% 1.8%
• Administrative and support services 16.9% 30.4%
• Health and social work 11.7% 17.9%
• Public administration, defence, or social security 2.6% 3.6%
• Education 2.6% 11.6%
• Information and communication 5.2% 8.0%
• Financial and insurance activities 16.9% 3.6%
• Other 7.8% 3.6%
Source: Adapted from McGann (2022b)

The Irish data on the impact of quasi-marketisation on the composition of the frontline workforce closely mirrors what Considine and colleagues observed in relation to quasi-marketisation in Australia (Considine and Lewis, 2010; Considine et al, 2015). Compared with LES staff, the workers hired to deliver JobPath were much younger, had lower qualifications, and were entirely de-collectivised (no JobPath staff whatsoever reported union membership). In the Irish case, these changes unfolded over a more compressed period. They were not brought about by temporal shifts in the demography of activation workers or the gradual neoliberal colonisation of the social services workforce. Nor were they the product of skilled professionals leaving the sector out of frustration at increasing levels of managerialism and a growing sense of discrepancy between their ‘professional moral frameworks and welfare-to-work’ (van Berkel, 2017: 26). This may happen in time. But, for now, the de-skilling of activation workers in Ireland has much more to do with contractors’ workforce selection practices in response to the demands of competitive tendering and performance-based contracting.

Whether the qualification levels, experience, and age profile of the JobPath workforce will increase as those organisations become more established remains to be seen. Admittedly, a limitation of the analysis is that the comparison is between street-level workers employed in two relatively new organisations and workers employed in organisations that have existed for 25 years. The JobPath workforce has not had the opportunity to accumulate professional accreditations in the way that the much older and more experienced LES workforce has. That may be the case but the experience of quasi-markets in other liberal welfare regimes does not provide grounds for optimism that this will improve over time. Of all countries, Australia has perhaps the most established welfare-to-work market dating back to the mid-1990s. Yet, the age profile and qualification levels of the frontline workforce have barely changed since the 2000s. For instance, only a quarter of the frontline staff surveyed in 2016 reported holding a university degree while 40 per cent reported being under 35 years of age; almost the same proportions as in 2008 (Lewis et al, 2017). This, combined with the Irish data and what we know from experiences in the US (Schram and Silverman, 2012) and Britain (Greer et al, 2017), would seem to point towards a path dependency in the relationship between marketisation and the de-skilling of activation workers; one that can become ‘locked-in’ during the initial years of quasi-marketisation and prove stubbornly resistant to change (see Considine et al, 2020a).

From qualifications to dispositions

To round off discussion of the intersection between quasi-marketisation and the politics of professionalism, the chapter concludes with some tentative observations about the potential implications of these occupational dynamics for the types of worldviews and beliefs about the unemployed that case managers may bring to their jobs. For it is well known from previous studies that a key influence on street-level decision-making is the moral judgements of deservingness that frontline workers so often make about their individual clients but also broader populations of service-users (Zacka, 2017; Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2000; McGann et al, 2022). For instance, previous Australian research suggests that frontline workers are more inclined to turn to sanctions and to adopt a ‘work-first’ approach if they believe that most claimants are unemployed through a lack of individual effort rather than circumstances beyond their control (McGann et al, 2020).

The salience of these normative assessments, which are heavily informed by the circulation of welfare discourses both at a policy and organisational level, is further highlighted by Redman and Fletcher’s study of the sanctioning practices of Jobcentre Plus advisors in Britain. While ‘off-benefit flow’ targets fed into the sanctioning of claimants by advisors, so too did the stigmatising power of ‘pejorative welfare tropes’ as beliefs that claimants were workshy and even gaming the system desensitised advisors to ‘the humanity of their caseloads’ and permitted them ‘to justify punitive working practices which would likely lead to harmful outcomes’ (Redman and Fletcher, 2021: 14).

What follows are offered as tentative observations to be further explored in future research as the study data are not entirely conclusive on the extent to which the observed differences in normative understandings between JobPath and LES staff reflect differences in their professional identities and occupational backgrounds. However, studies from other jurisdictions offer some evidence that workers’ occupational backgrounds may be significant for whether they subscribe to the pathological theories of unemployment underpinning workfarist policies. For instance, research comparing the attitudes of social work professionals with case managers from other backgrounds suggests that the latter are more likely to blame unemployment on jobseekers’ lack of effort rather than more structural causes. This has been found to be the case in both Nordic (Kallio et al, 2013) and liberal (McDonald and Marston, 2008) countries.

The Irish survey data reported in Table 5.6 points to similar attitudinal differences between the JobPath and LES frontline staff. When asked which is more often to blame if a person is on benefits, a lack of effort on their part or circumstances beyond their control, a higher proportion of JobPath staff (38 per cent) blamed being on benefits on jobseekers’ lack of effort whereas just 27 per cent of LES staff reported this view. Similarly, when asked to estimate the proportion of claimants ‘who would rather be on benefits than work to support themselves and their families’, JobPath respondents gave a mean estimate of just under 39 per cent whereas LES respondents, on average, estimated this proportion to be under 33 per cent. Finally, when asked whether they felt there should be more government spending on benefits for unemployed people than currently, 61 per cent of JobPath respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with increasing spending on benefits. Conversely, a higher proportion of LES respondents were in favour (41 per cent) of increasing spending on benefits than were opposed (32 per cent).

Put simply, JobPath staffs’ normative understandings of welfare were more in line with the pathological theories of unemployment and discourses of welfare dependency underpinning workfarist activation than those of LES staff. This was also reflected in the interview data, with most of the JobPath staff citing claimants’ lack of motivation and the relative generosity of payments as significant barriers to employment. While a small number of LES mediators also held such views, they were not as widely expressed as among the JobPath staff who frequently articulated the view that a significant proportion of claimants were unmotivated to work:

‘Some people need a bit of a; I wouldn’t call it a kick up the ass, but they need a bit of a kind of rude awakening … Generally, I’d say younger people, they need a bit of kind of an awakening that they can’t always stay like this forever. “You’re moving into your late 20s, or 30s … You can’t be sitting be home with mammy all the time … It’s time to grow up”.’ (Liam, JobPath Advisor)

‘I would have had family who would have been on social welfare, and I’m looking and I’m going “You are not bothering, you are not bothering. You don’t have to get out of bed except for the day that you collect your money”.’ (Trish, JobPath Manager)

‘You can get into a rut on Jobseeker’s Allowance … where you just think “Ah sure look, grand I’m getting my whatever payment a week, and my rent is paid and all” … I do see it as across the board.’ (Joanna, JobPath Employer liaison and ex-advisor)

Table 5.6:

Attitudes towards welfare and unemployment
In your opinion, which is more often to blame if a person is on benefits …? JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 112)		 No degree

(n = 86)		 Degree

(n = 102)
1. Lack of effort 2.6% 3.6% 5.8% 1.0%
2. 7.8% 2.7% 5.8% 3.9%
3. 27.3% 20.5% 31.4% 16.7%
4. 33.8% 33.9% 27.9% 38.2%
5. 18.2% 16.1% 17.4% 16.7%
6. 7.8% 13.4% 7.0% 14.7%
7. Circumstances beyond their control 2.6% 9.8% 4.7% 8.8.%
Mann-Whitney U-test Z = 2.121 p = 0.034 Z = -2.944 p = 0.003
Estimated percentage of claimants who would rather be on benefits than work … JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 109)		 No Degree

(n = 85)		 Degree

(n = 100)
Mean 38.5% 32.6% 39.9% 30.1%
Mann-Whitney U-test Z = -2.2 p = 0.032 Z = -2.994 p = 0.003
Whether there should be more government spending on benefits for unemployed people JobPath

(n = 77)		 LES

(n = 111)		 No Degree

(n = 85)		 Degree

(n = 102)
• Strongly agree 6.5% 15.3% 7.1% 15.7%
• Agree 14.3% 26.1% 23.5% 19.6%
• Neither 18.2% 26.1% 24.7% 20.6%
• Disagree 48.1% 26.1% 35.3% 35.3%
• Strongly disagree 13.0% 6.3% 9.4% 8.8%
Mann-Whitney U-test Z = -3.8

p < 0.001		 Z = -0.673

p = 0.502

Whether these attitudinal differences in LES and JobPath workers’ beliefs about welfare and unemployment reflect differences in their ‘professional’ backgrounds is difficult to say. Although the data in Table 5.6 does show that respondents’ answers to these attitudinal questions differed depending on whether they held a university degree. Other than respondents’ attitudes towards increasing spending on benefits, those who reported holding a degree were more inclined towards structural rather than behavioural explanations of unemployment. For instance, among those with a university degree, the mean estimated proportion of claimants who would rather be on benefits than work was just 30 per cent compared with an estimate of almost 40 per cent among those without a degree. Similarly, only 21 per cent of frontline staff with a degree reported that a lack of effort was the reason why people were on benefits compared with 43 per cent of those without a degree.

Qualification levels, of course, are not synonymous with occupational background (respondents’ previous occupations were too varied to meaningfully compare whether this was associated with attitudinal differences). Although the interview data did suggest that LES workers’ degrees were typically associated with undertaking study in employment guidance, adult counselling, and other fields related to working with the long-term unemployed. To this extent, the differences in frontline workers’ qualification levels likely tracked differences in their professional backgrounds. In other words, it is not higher qualifications per se that potentially inoculates frontline workers against pathological theories of unemployment but accredited training in fields closely associated with employment guidance and counselling. Nonetheless, further work is needed to examine this relationship between street-level workers’ occupational backgrounds and their normative understandings of unemployment more conclusively.

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