Managing the electronic turn

ABSTRACT

Information systems have become ubiquitous across social work, leading to an electronic turn. A key tension is that IT embedded procedures can be counterproductive, encouraging those involved to direct their behaviour to comply with specific measures, rather than address the real issue for which the measures are just a proxy. This is particularly an issue for local managers, who have direct contact with service users and who increasingly mediate the impact of systems of control, such as Electronic Information Systems (IS). We interviewed 30 local managers in the field of child welfare and protection (CWP) in Flanders, Belgium to grasp their position towards this electronic turn. The interviewees identified aspects of the IS as suitable and useful to manage their team, but also expressed their concerns regarding the impact of the inflexible implementation of IS for the development of responsive social work. Most of the managers also talked about how they used strategies of management discretion to bend, reshape or even ignore IS procedures. The result seems to be a mock bureaucracy where official rules and procedures are in place, but local managers develop a parallel system of work that better reflects the needs with which they have to work.

SAMENVATTING

De aanwezigheid van informatiesystemen in het sociaal werk heeft geleid tot een elektronische omwenteling. Deze omwenteling zorgt voor een spanning waarbij van professionals verwacht wordt dat zij hun gedrag afstemmen op procedures die eigen zijn aan informatiesystemen, terwijl diezelfde procedures als contraproductief worden ervaren voor het dagelijks werk van die professionals. Dit is in het bijzonder het geval voor managers die rechtstreeks contact hebben met cliënten en die vaker dan voorheen de impact van informatiesystemen trachten te mediëren. We interviewden 30 managers die tewerkgesteld zijn in de Vlaamse jeugdhulp (België) om hun perspectief op deze elektronische omwenteling bloot te leggen. De managers geven aan een aantal aspecten van informatiesystemen als waardevol te beschouwen om hun team te besturen. Tegelijkertijd uiten ze ook hun bezorgdheid over het gebrek aan flexibiliteit van deze informatiesystemen en de negatieve impact ervan op de ontwikkeling van responsief sociaal werk. Het overgrote deel van de geïnterviewden gebruikt dan ook hun discretionaire ruimte om strategieën te ontwikkelen die de opgelegde procedures voor het gebruik van informatiesystemen ombuigen of vermijden. Dit resulteert in vorm van bureaucratie waarbij officiële regels en protocollen wel bestaan, maar managers een parallel systeem ontwikkelen om deze regels te omzeilen en hun dagelijkse taken naar behoren uit te kunnen oefenen.

KEYWORDS:

• Child welfare and protection
• discretion
• electronic information systems
• managers

Trefwoorden:

• jeugdhulp
• discretionaire ruimte
• elektronische informatie systemen
• managers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jochen Devlieghere is postdoctoral researcher at the department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University in Belgium. His main research interest is the rationalisation and formalisation of social work in general and child welfare and protection in particular. Furthermore, he has developed an interest in the meaning of social research in broader society.

Rudi Roose is professor of Social Work at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University in Belgium. His research interest is focused on the development of socially just practices in managerial contexts.

Tony Evans is Professor of Social Work at Royal Holloway University of London. His research has focused on a critical re-evaluation of street-level bureaucracy theory. He has also looked at ideas of expertise and ethics and how these relate to judgement and claims to discretion in professional practice. His current research interests include: discretion as a creative practice; professional ethics as a practical decision-making process; and the increasing influence of legalism on in welfare services.

Notes

1 Numbers related to individual interviewees.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Special Research Fund from the first author's University.