Managing Risk in Welfare Agencies. A. Alaszewski, L. Harrison, J. Manthorpe, and M. Walsh, Institute of Health Studies (Social Policy), University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, tel 01 482 465895, fax 01 482 466306, e-mail A.M.Alaszewski@spps.hull.ac.uk
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper is based on research into
risk and social welfare being conducted at the University of
Hull. This is one of 15 projects
funded under the Economic and Social Research Council as
Phase One of the Risk and Human Behaviour
Initiative (project no. L211 25 2002 'Risk,
Vulnerable Clients and Social Welfare').
The Hull research project focuses on the issues of
risk affecting the social welfare
of adults with learning difficulties and vulnerable children.
The aims of the research are to:
This paper focuses on the second
aim of the project and examines the ways in which welfare agencies
manage the risks associated with client care.
2. WELFARE AGENCIES AND RISK: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Understanding the ways in which organisations such as local authority Social Services Departments or specialist voluntary agencies operate, should form an important part of our understanding of the delivery of welfare services as these institutions are the crucial link between national policy/resources and the client or user. They shape the service which people receive by providing the framework for front-line worker/user interactions. Indeed studying these agencies is particularly important at present as they are going through a period of rapid change with the implementation of the Children Act 1989 and the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. Organisations such as social services are acquiring features of private sector organisations, and more service provision is being undertaken by voluntary and commercial organisations. As Griffiths noted in his review of community care, social services departments must no longer be 'monopoly providers' in social care. Purchasing and providing are being separated and one single agency no longer takes overall responsibility for ensuring quality through direct service provision. These changes have increased the overall level of uncertainty and risk: purchasers are dependent on a number of providers for the successful implementation of their purchasing plans, while providers are dependent on a variety of purchasers for the successful implementation of their business plans and must increasingly compete for the 'custom' of a client if they are successfully to attract funds. Thus we are in the middle of a period of rapid organisational change in which agencies are experimenting with different forms of Organisation. It is not clear how these organisational changes will affect the ways in which agencies recognise and respond to risk.
2.1 A Weberian Approach
Until the 1980s there was
very little analysis of the ways in which organisations responded
to risk. However it is possible to reconsider
some of the classic work of organisations from a risk perspective.
Weber (1947) argued that in modem
society there were two main bases for Organisation, rational-legal
and charismatic authority. Rational-legal authority is the basis
of bureaucratic Organisation. Weber defined bureaucracy as a
hierarchical structure of office-holders in which decisions are
based on impersonal rules. Thus bureaucracies tend to be order-oriented
organisations which are concerned with stability and predictability,
i.e. they are essentially risk-averse. In contrast, charismatic
authority is based on the personal authority or charisma of a
leader. The emphasis is not on formal rigid structures but on
a network of personal relations focused on the central charismatic
individual. This type of Organisation is associated with both
considerable fluidity and uncertainty and can be seen as providing
the context for spontaneity and creativity, i.e. they thrive on
and indeed foster risk.
2.2 Hood's Doctrinal Disputes
The Weberian approach uses ideal
types which attempt to capture the intrinsic nature of specific
organisations and are by definition holistic. Hood et al (1992)
in a study of organisational response to risk offers a way of
unpackaging the overall approach and to explore separate dimensions
or components of organisational response to risk. Hood et al
argue that there are a number of distinctive dimensions to organisational
response to risk, in their terms 'doctrinal disputes'. Three
of these disputes are :
Making decisions The first main area of choice for organisations relates to the range of participants in the process of managing risk and whether the assessment of risk is restricted to experts or whether the organisation seeks participation from non-experts such as service users or the general public.
Internal Management and Reward
Systems Hood et al argue
that organisations can use different internal incentive systems
to effectively manage risk. They can either have punitive systems
which are based on the assumption that if members of staff know
that they will be blamed if something goes wrong then they will
be safety conscious. The alternative approach emphases the importance
of organisational learning and is based on the assumption that
if individuals are protected from the consequences of (minor)
mistakes and report them then the organisation can learn and prevent
major mistakes.
Managing the environment The third main area in which organisations differ in their response to uncertainty and the management of risk is their relationship to their environment. Hood argues that organisations can either attempt to predict or anticipate accidents and seek to prevent them occurring or they may view accidents as unpredictable and therefore develop mechanisms for responding rapidly when they do occur to minimise the damage which they cause.
3. METHODS
This phase of the research had a
relatively simple objective, which was to identify the agencies
in one English Region who provided care for vulnerable children
and/or for adults with a learning disability and to examine the
documentation of a sample of agencies to see whether they were
sensitive to risk and if so, how they managed risk.
The data reported in this paper is
derived from a sample survey of agencies providing care for vulnerable
children and adults with a learning disability in one Region.
The sample included agencies which specialised in child care
or adults with a learning disability as well as case of multipurpose
agencies which provided care for either vulnerable children and/or
adults with a learning disability as well as other clients.
We invited each agency to send us
the documentation which described the aims and objectives of the
agency. We analysed the content of the general documentation
and where appropriate the content of more specialised risk documentation,
to examine how agencies generally managed their activities as
well as how agencies assessed and managed the risks of providing
client care.
4. FINDINGS
4.1 Sensitivity to Risk
An initial analysis of the documentation,
indicated relatively limited formal recognition of risk. Only
40% of the agencies were classified as having documentation which
indicated a high awareness of risk within their documentation.
Client Group Variation The
agencies which responded to our initial contact, included both
multi-purpose and specialist agencies. Given the high political
visibility of child protection resulting from various inquiries
and associated media coverage, and the clear requirement placed
upon agencies by the 1989 Children Act to assess the risk of abuse,
we anticipated that child protection agencies would be more sensitive
to risk, i.e. would make clear and explicit statements about the
ways in which the identification and management of risk was linked
to their decision-making processes. Although specialist agencies
appeared to be more sensitive than multi-purpose agencies, agencies
providing services for clients with a learning disability were
actually more sensitive to risk.
4.2 Agency Strategies for Managing Risk
We separately examined the ways in
which the welfare agencies sought to make decisions, internally
managed staff and externally managed their environment. An analysis
of Weber's work suggest a distinction between bureaucratic or
closed types of organisations and more open. Essentially bureaucratic
organisations can be seen as risk averse and defensive seeking
to limit decision-making to small group of experts, control staff
through negative sanctions and deny external risk. This third
dimension would imply that these organisations would tend to be
risk-insensitive but if they do recognise environmental risks
then they are more likely to react to actual proven harm rather
than assess probabilities of future harm. The more open organizations
would tend to be more aware and responsive to risk issues and
would therefore be more willing to open up decision-making to
non-experts as well as experts, be more inclined towards organisational
learning and therefore to using positive sanctions within
the organisations and to be aware of and anticipate risk.
All Agencies The documents which we received from welfare agencies indicated that in terms of managing the environment, the agencies tended to be defensive, in terms of internal management there was more of a balance between defensive and open approaches, but in terms of participation agencies were more open seeking to include non-experts especially service users.
When we focused on agencies responses to risk a similar pattern emerged although the differences were less marked. In terms of managing the environment, the agencies tended to be defensive, in terms of internal management there was a relatively even division, but in terms of participation agencies were more open seeking to include non-experts especially service users.
Specialist Agencies We
explored the interaction between different components of agency
response to risk by considering the ways in which the two different
types of agency approach management in general and the management
of risk in particular. The difference between the two sets of
agencies was clear cut. Child care agencies strategies for both
general and risk management were defensive, only m term of participation
in the general management decisions did these agencies display
any openness and when the focus of attention was restricted to
risk, even this openness disappeared.
In contrast agencies specialising
in supporting people with learning disability displayed far more
open responses to general and risk management. In all areas of
general management they displayed a more open approach. This
difference was reduced but still evident when the focus of attention
was restricted to the management of risk.
4.3 Conclusion
Our analysis of documentation collected
from welfare agencies in one Region in England indicates that
some agencies are highly aware and sensitive to risk but generally
both awareness and sensitivity are limited with few agencies having
well developed risk management strategies. There were variations
in the strategies which agencies used both in general management
and to manage risk. The strategies varied both in terms of specific
areas of management and in terms of specific types of organisations.
Thus generally agencies were most open in terms of participation
in decision-making, however this tended to be through the involvement
of users rather than wider lay involvement in decision, and they
tended to be most defensive in relationship to the management
of the environment being equally divided in their use of negative
and positive sanctions for internal management. There was also
a difference between the different types of agencies, child protection
agencies were the most defensive while learning disability tended
to be the most open with multi-purpose agencies in between.
These variations tend to indicate
that perceptions of environmental threats are particularly important
for the management of risk and support the cultural theory approach
developed by Mary Douglas (1992). Although the general environment
within which welfare agencies operate has become more turbulent,
agencies vary m their perception of and response to this turbulence.
The cultural theory perspective suggests that organisational
concerns with risk are an indicator of organisational insecurity
which would be related to other indicators of organisational insecurity
such as concern with boundaries and maintaining 'membership' of
the organisation and general concerns about the survival of the
organisation
References
Douglas, M. (1992) Risk and Blame:
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Hood, C. C., et al. (1992),
'Risk Management', in Royal Society Study Group, (ed.) Risk,
analysis, perception and management: report of a Royal Society
Study Group, London: The Royal Society.
Weber, M. (1947) The Theory of
Social and Economic Organization, Translated by A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons with
an Introduction by Talcott Parsons, New York, The Free Press,
1947.