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Social care and the modern citizen: client, consumer, service user, manager and entrepreneur

journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 12:35 authored by Peter Scourfield
Since coming to power, New Labour has embarked on a programme of modernization. Few areas of state activity have been more visibly subjected to New Labour’s modernization agenda than the personal social services. Local authority social services departments have largely ceased to exist as separate organizational entities. However, modernization has also required that the relationship between state and citizen be reconstructed. This is evident in New Labour’s vision for adult social care which envisages a move towards individual budgets. The individualizing nature of such schemes may be thought hard to reconcile with the discourse of integration and partnership prominent elsewhere. However, a key linking concept is that of ‘person-centredness’. It is often assumed that this simply means that public services become more flexible to meet the needs of ‘the person’. This paper uses the example of direct payments to demonstrate how modernization also requires flexibility of ‘the person’. It would appear that inherent in New Labour’s project of modernization is the assumption that the modern citizen should be both managerial and entrepreneurial. What were once public responsibilities are being transferred to the individual. The implications for the users of adult social care are discussed.

History

Refereed

  • Yes

Volume

37

Issue number

1

Page range

107-122

Publication title

British Journal of Social Work

ISSN

1468-263X

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Language

  • other

Legacy posted date

2010-11-24

Legacy Faculty/School/Department

ARCHIVED Faculty of Health, Social Care & Education (until September 2018)

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