The policy and the practice : implementing welfare-to-work in disability employment network organisations

Abstract

The catalyst for this study is the recent Australian Federal Government's Welfare-towork policy for people with disability. Commencing 1 July 2006, this policy requires people with disability applying for government financial assistance, assessed as being able to work between 15 and 29 hours per week, to seek employment in return for an enhanced Newstart or Youth Allowance. Located within a suite of welfare changes, this initiative represents a major change in direction for disability policy. This policy is consistent with a workfare approach, underpinned by the principle of mutual obligation, in which welfare recipients are required to meet certain participation criteria.The Welfare-to-work policy not only has implications for people with disability but also for street-level employment consultants situated in nonprofit Disability Employment Network organisations. These employment consultants now have different roles based on the contractual relationship between Disability Employment Network organisations as service provider, and the Australian Federal Government through the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations as purchaser, to deliver employment services. The focus of this study has been to better understand the practices of these employment consultants and how these practices affect the implementation of the policy.The role of employment consultants in the implementation of the Welfare-to-work policy is an area in which little or no research has been undertaken. The study is informed by Lipsky's Street-level Bureaucracy Theory and employs a conceptual framework adapted from Jones and May's 1992 Framework for Analysing Organisational Location for Front-line Workers. The framework is analysed using four environmental factors that, either individually or collectively, determine the practices of these street-level bureaucrats. These factors are the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations; the organisation; the client; and the self identity of consultants.Employing an ethnographic methodology, rich data was collected from the workplace environ of one Brisbane metropolitan nonprofit Disability Employment Network organisation. The study finds that employment consultants experience a number of challenges in implementing the Welfare-to-work policy. It is asserted that, due to the nature of the outcomes-based contract between the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and nonprofit organisations, some employment consultants have an ethical dilemma between satisfying the new organisational demands and those of their clients. Until there is confluence of these demands, employment consultants will continue to operate in an environment of confusion and implement the Welfare-to-work policy in an inconsistent manner.