The implications of neoliberalism for social work: Reflections from a six-country international research collaboration

Introduction

Public sector and social welfare reform have been part of the international landscape in many countries over the past three decades. These reforms are often undertaken for different political justifications, processes, discourses and speeds. The majority of social work literature views these changes, their impact on social work and social and economic inequality from a single country perspective. However, developing international perspectives and research collaboration is important to facilitate global understanding of the context of international neoliberal economic doctrine, its trends and to aid social work’s appreciation of the impact of globalization on vulnerable people and the profession. This article reflects on the early experience of six countries participating in a three-year EU Marie Curie IRSES research project to explore the impact of neoliberalism on social work practice, public health, vulnerable population groups and links to the Global Agenda. This article therefore addresses questions of structure by exploring the implementation of care markets and structures and practice implications, linking these to developments in training before exploring the role of policy implementation in supervision. It should be noted that the reflections in the article will be undertaken mostly in a collective manner and are not country specific, as the emphasis is on the Global Agenda. However, each of these discussions do not fit as neatly into the categories that have been used for analysis in this article due to the many cross-cutting links.

The project was developed initially from UK perspectives with key themes providing a valuable starting point for international review. The complexity of the endeavour, the engagement of countries that have not often been compared and the diversity of the team’s international professional exposure, research traditions and methodologies has provided a valuable space for the development of ongoing international comparative research skills. The consortium partners are wide-ranging geographically, economically, politically and their experience (from Finland, India, Italy, South Africa, Russia and England) provides a catalyst to draw together different knowledge and skills, illustrate the varied socio-political and ideological frameworks as they impact on the profession. Work within the project is divided into collaborative research parings of EU and non-EU countries to explore initially three key areas, namely vulnerability and citizens’ rights, social policy development and the social work profession. This article reflects the work undertaken within the profession work package, linking initial observations on training, service provision and the Global Agenda. The varied background and different models of practice enable effective sharing of knowledge and experience to explore the phenomena, enquire into research tools and draw upon the principles of the Global Agenda to propose future solutions. Whilst this project is ongoing, it is hoped that the early ideas and debates expressed in this article might facilitate exchange and professional challenge globally.

What is neoliberalism?

In the last three decades many societies have experienced political, economic and cultural change that have transformed our communities through the implementation of less regulated models of capitalism, the paring of welfare states, changes to the structure and accountability of organizations in the public and private sectors, an increased emphasis on risk and greater casualization of the workforce (Pratt, 2006). Harvey (2010: 2) therefore defines neoliberalism as:

a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices.

This economic doctrine therefore provides an important plank in government economic policy, their commitment to social welfare, human and social rights and social work’s role in promoting, protecting and enforcing them.

The development of this neoliberal approach was principally based on the opposition to the policy doctrine espoused by John Keynes in the UK in the 1930s and the New Deal in the USA. Its macro-economic ideas are aimed at ways of reducing the size and influence of the state, increasing deregulation and promoting private enterprise, with the belief that, as the state has less responsibility, its financial requirements diminish, resulting in lower taxation rates which is considered good for economic growth (Harvey, 2010) and that resulting economic benefits would trickle down to the poor and reduce inequality. Rather than reducing poverty, there appears to be increasing levels of inequality in many countries (Hills, 1995; Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010).

The challenge of neoliberalism for international social work research

The challenge to interpret social work from an international perspective requires an understanding of practice context and to view this beyond state welfare provision. Even the understanding and experience of welfare is different internationally, with many viewing austerity in ‘generous welfare services’ as still being better than the experience of the poor in other countries. This IRSES project also involves countries that comprise the so-called global North and global South and countries that are not normally compared in international literature. Whilst the debates, literature and research agenda for international social policy analysis transcends the purpose of the article, readers are reminded that it is important to seek contextual understanding of political, economic and social factors in the development of social welfare models, their implementation and the forces of change. For this article we are locating our analysis at the crossroads of three important aspects of social work, namely its structure, education and policy implementation. These identified themes were developed following project debates in seeking a framework to understand and to compare professional experiences.

In seeking to interpret social work education it was important to understand what constitutes social work globally. This inevitably leads to the International Association of Schools of Social Work/International Federation of Social Workers (IASSW, 2001) definition. Whilst this current definition in part recognizes social work as having a unique perspective in relation to practice (Sims, 2011) and a degree of international commonality, others have highlighted that professional information to help direct the process of international collaboration in social work research is limited (Lombe et al., 2013). The acceptability of the definition has been challenged, along with the ability to have a single, global definition of social work in a postmodern cultural environment (Payne and Askeland, 2008; Sewpaul and Jones, 2005). Global work to review the definition is currently underway with well-articulated global voices challenging current perspectives and social work approaches whilst remaining committed to global social work principles (Paulsen, 2012). The global submissions highlight how regionally social work has taken positions against neoliberalism (Paulsen, 2012). These perspectives go to the heart of what social workers are being educated to do and how global collective perspectives can be facilitated. However, to promote the aims of the Global Agenda in social work and to advance social and economic equality it is important ‘… to strengthen the profile and visibility of social work, to develop new partnerships to boost the confidence of social workers to make a stronger contribution to policy development’ (Jones and Truell, 2012: 455–456). Thus despite the benefits of international research collaboration, scholars report a process riddled with challenges, which may include obstacles in funding, language difficulties and methodological problems (Gardner et al., 2012; Lombe et al., 2013). The diverse nature of the countries involved has resulted in the IRSES project needing to develop cohesive theory and explanation of processes and so undertake a process of joint knowledge-building (Singh et al., 2007: 85).

Developing research frameworks

The research project commenced at the end of March 2012 and will be undertaken over a three-year time period. The EU research grant is aimed at both developing international research skills and supporting secondary research through international secondments. This research collaborative has extensively debated the need for robust research methodologies and their universal applicability across all the themed project work packages. The work package exploring social work has sought to utilize an inductive exploration of academic perspectives through a combination of seminars and literature based research. The use of secondary data analysis within a simplified methodology enabled data collection and reworking of already analysed data over which the present researchers had no direct control or involvement (De Vos et al., 2005). This exploratory methodology enabled the team to undertake a critical literature review, cross-national comparisons and allowed for richness of data (Teagarden et al., 1995) but posed dilemmas for the development of robust and rigorous systems to facilitate development and analysis of knowledge. Research was largely undertaken through individual researcher visits, team symposium events and documentary analysis. This methodology enabled the exploration of contexts and insights to support the validity, credibility, conformability, transferability and reliability of the qualitative research outcomes. The process of data selection, simplifying, abstraction, conclusion drawing and verification has been an ongoing process requiring the expertise of the entire team to develop propositions, data displays and verification. This is an ongoing process, with results from this initial work being reported on at the start of 2014. It should be noted that it was clear from the beginning that a linear positivist approach (Teagarden et al., 1995) would not be possible due to the location of the team across different countries and the ongoing problems due to the iterative nature of qualitative collaborative research, where replication is not always possible.

A further area of complexity has been ethical approval at an international level, with each country needing to review its ethical approval processes. The research collaboration has overall research ethics approval from Coventry University (UK) and additional ethics approvals are sought in partner countries, as appropriate, by the academic lead in each of those countries. This alone has been a learning process, with most countries either not requiring the same level or any ethical approval as is required in the UK. The ethics approval does not include access to vulnerable individuals or primary data collection, as this would have required considerable additional safeguards, even in countries or universities where routine ethics approval were not necessary. The process of scoping international ethical requirements and ensuring that the project meets all the necessary requirements provided a useful debate on how data should be collected, stored, ethically analysed and whom it will benefit. It was important therefore to ensure that all decisions were made openly, ethically and that any findings would be open to discussion and peer review.

The uniqueness of social work

In seeking to understand the impact of a neoliberal approach on social work practice it is important for us to reflect on the uniqueness of social work which is not due to a discrete knowledge base, but rather its perspective on people’s problems in ‘living’ and therefore ‘… the inter-connectedness and interdependence of individuals with their society, believing that “private troubles” and “public issues” are intimately related. The knowledge base, therefore, is derived from research about individuals and society and, more importantly, about the dynamic relationship between the two…’ (James, 1986: 4).

This uniqueness in perspective together with social work’s role and response have in recent years experienced a policy ‘effect’ with implications for the marginalization of those who receive its services, that is, through the restriction of services (Murray, 1994), the reduced role in preventative services (Dominelli, 1996; Lombard, 2008) and the rise of managerialist supervision or management processes (Berggren et al., 2010; Marobela, 2008; Wastell et al., 2010). These features have been present in all countries, even when articulated social policy suggests otherwise. In addition, New Public Management (NPM) has long emphasized the use of corporate management in public service, in addition to transferring public sector work from the government to the corporate sector (Monbiot, 2000). The development of corporate social responsibility programmes in countries like India have also emphasized a greater role for private sector beyond that of the privatization of social welfare services seen in many other countries. As a result NPM has been a useful tool in neoliberal efforts to transform public services into market mechanisms and management (Davidson, 1993). In addition to this, the role of the state as the buffer against poverty (Gregory and Holloway, 2005) is also undergoing change, with greater emphasis being placed on civil society and the role of corporate social responsibility (Sivakumar, 2007).

Implementation of care markets

Cultural change as a result of neoliberalism has resulted in the commoditization of aspects of society that were previously considered impossible to marketize such as social welfare, pollution and water (Connell et al., 2009). Whilst all countries participating in this research process have identified social work provision as existing in state, non-governmental (NGO) and private sectors, it is also important to recognize the structural changes in services offered. NGOs have partnered with government to deliver services often under the guise as a solution to poor service coverage or delivery by the state sector; increased democratization; and attempting to mobilize public responsibility to tackle poverty, establish shared responsibility and bridging the gulf between reduced state services and the needs of society (Molyneux, 2008: 788). However, the use of NGOs draws them into regulatory systems (Maidment, 2006), but also as these organizations become more dependent on government finance for service delivery and survival, it weakens their ability to advocate for social and economic change as well as social justice whilst strengthening the need for them to respond positively to evaluation criteria, service delivery models and government requirements (Pollack, 2008).

The use of NPM has often been described as ‘… management which increased both direct and indirect methods of control, in order to enhance productivity, increase profit and/or reduce costs’ (Macalpine and Marsh, 2008). However, whilst these aims seek to achieve efficiency and accountability, other core values such as equality, equity and participation are de-emphasized (Gregory, 2007). Indeed some suggest that as the state sector has been increasingly criticized for being the cause of social problems such as crime and poverty, with the social work profession who are integral to the welfare state also experiencing a reduction in status (Garland, 2001). The profession has become vulnerable in its response to this criticism, its efforts to lift itself out of this predicament especially through adopting neoliberal ideas such as risk management (Pollack, 2008), promoting the use of markets through individual budgets and the erosion of universal social work services. Thus the profession should also be on its guard that others, perhaps with less noble intentions, may seek to highjack the Global Agenda by stealth to further their own political and economic aspirations.

Market logic is therefore increasingly embedded across society, with the values being internalized within citizen’s social and personal lives (Brown, 2003), creating professional challenges due to social work’s increasing isolation from the provision of universal services. This underlies Bourdieu and Wacquant’s (2001) warning that as a result of political spin, the true nature of neoliberal projects is often disguised or presented as fresh and reformist. In group discussions amongst project partners there has been acknowledgement that the experience of many countries has been neoliberal implementation through the rhetoric of public service modernization and a drive for greater resource efficiency. Other changes have seen the discourse or ideas of social work ‘clients’ and ‘citizens’ recast to that of consumers, whilst at the same time public organizations are remoulded as replicas of the business world (Cowden and Singh, 2007).

Structure and practice implications

The importance of relationships to effect change in social work is well documented (Maiter et al., 2006; Ruch et al., 2010; Waterhouse and McGhee, 2009). However, the development of market solutions in countries such as England, as leading advocates of marketization, have resulted in social workers being recast as a ‘care manager’ under the National Health Service and Community Care Act (DH, 1990). Specialization has become based on service user groups such as children, adults and mental health rather than by way of professional interventions such as case work and community work, the latter approaches focusing more on the importance of building relationships, empowerment, facilitation and critical pedagogy.

The challenges of limited resources or insufficient resources to meet demand, has not only resulted in increased emphasis on risk-based approaches but these have been at the detriment of prevention, along with attacks on universal social work services due to the concerns about efficiency, risk and prioritization (Hojer and Forkby, 2010; Hölscher, 2008). Increasingly the role of social workers appears to be more focused on assessment of needs (Hyslop, 2012), identification of risks, identification of formal and informal resources and engaging in debates regarding the rights and responsibilities of users of services. The centrality of risk assessment in the social work task serves as a further example of the impact of standardization, where it has now become a fundamental aspect of social work practice (Webb, 2006). Authors such as Ferguson and Lavalette (2006) see standardization as contributing to social work’s deskilling. The use of standardized instruments results in social workers having to justify the provision of services or assessment of risk (Haney, 2004; Parton, 1998). Risk assessment has become a core part of the role of children’s social workers and that as a result of the documentation audit trail; workers are expected to focus more on defensible decisions rather than the ‘right’ ones (Parton, 1998). Furthermore, the increased use of competence based frameworks in social work training is a form of standardization that at its best promotes accountability and standards, but can also lead to a focus on minimum acceptable standards, increased administration and reduced educational content.

As a result, employers believe that social workers no longer need to have specific skills in therapeutic or specialized social work interventions. This raises questions about the training of social work and the experience of supervision as a management process that seeks to either reinforce or negate these trends.

Social work training

In comparing the training of social workers this ranged from a three to four years of undergraduate study and then a two-year Masters programme in social work across the countries involved. In only two countries (South Africa, England) does the professional board take responsibility for the approval of the course or curriculum. In India the responsibility lies with the Higher Education board and in Italy with the Ministry of Universities. It is also important to note that in almost all the countries involved in the project, neoliberal policies have also had an influence on who should or should not do social work. Indeed in England, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) has been given powers ‘to regulate and decide on’ the appropriateness of what workers do even in their non-work life (McLaughlin, 2007: 242). There appears to be little ongoing debate on the ethics or appropriateness of this approach, despite the obvious risk of increased control and social injustice.

It is interesting to note that for all the six countries it is expected that social work students undertake a period of practice education and there is a wide variation in the number of hours required. Further work is required to understand the implications of this and to clarify the detail of what is presented, but this illustrates the complexity of international collaboration where further investigation and the development of frameworks are critical to locate and analyse data which at one level might seem straightforward, often requires considerable detailed examination. The perception of some UK policy-makers is that social work remains a practical activity which might be undertaken voluntarily by ‘bankers or ex insurance agents’ (Gentleman, 2010), although their commitment to social justice and ethical codes might be debatable given recent public financial scandals. Whilst neoliberal theory promotes the ideas of individual liberty, the need for accountability results in a further contradiction with social workers being scrutinized even in their personal capacity and private lives. In spite of this increased regulation, for users and citizens there appears to be a growing blurring of the titles of social worker and social care worker (Beresford and Croft, 2004; Lymbery, 2001; Rogowski, 2012). Moreover, as a result of the drive for flexibility, efficiency and modernization many tasks previously undertaken by social workers are now undertaken by unqualified workers or other professionals further weakening the profession. This attack on professional roles has not been uniformly defended or repulsed.

Supervision and management in social work?

Lawler and Bilson (2010) identify that prior to social work management the notion of social work administration resulted in processes that were based on mediation, negotiation and consensus and as a result did not conflict with social work values. Dustin (2007) has identified that increasingly UK ‘care managers’ have been subject to greater control in order to meet ‘management’ targets. The team have recognized that supervision and management have different professional contexts and meanings, with UK-based supervision having several roles: accountability, professional decision-making and professional development (Skills for Care/CWDC, 2007; Social Work Reform Board, 2010). This can result in organizational micromanagement. In contrast, in countries like South Africa and Finland supervision is seen as providing ‘clinical’ or professional support, whilst management is concerned with administration and that these two tasks or processes are separated by different people taking responsibility for them. In Russia, a Commission (Board) confirms the level of social workers’ achievements and promotes the level of individuals’ category of work. Additionally, through a position of a so-called ‘methodist’ – this a professional who looks into how the programs are built in social care centres and agencies, checks methods that are used, controls the quality of work – it is a state position and covers state agencies. The state actually manages and supervises the majority of social work agencies.

Within the project group only one country (South Africa) stipulates that only a qualified social worker can supervise another social worker. In two countries (England, Italy) other professionals can also do the supervision. In three countries (Russia, Finland and India) it is not clear what the profession of the supervisor should be. It is therefore important for us to begin to disentangle the processes, nuances and practice differences between management and supervision in the different contexts. Whilst this work is ongoing, it is clear that both the meaning and experience of supervision are different.

Thus, supervision in all contexts is intended to ensure that risks are effectively managed; that interventions are based on accumulated knowledge (evidence-based practice) and that social workers are supported to enable them to carry out their work ‘effectively’. Who judges what is effective is not normally contested within organizational practice. Management on the other hand is a term used to refer to the handling of more strategic or macro issues, ensuring that overall targets are achieved and that the direction of the organization is clear. In other words supervision tends to be inward looking while management is seen as outward looking. It is arguable that this differentiation is based on a problem-based approach to social work (Cohen, 2011), which locates the problem within the individual and focuses on the changes the individual needs to make in order to no longer be viewed as a problem.

Discussion

The Global Agenda has a key aim in strengthening the contribution of social work to make a greater contribution to policy development (Jones and Truell, 2012) and recognizes that the global challenges, in human and social development, require global responses. The social, economic and professional impact of neoliberalism is one such area in which social work has an important role to play. This article seeks to facilitate the debate on the role of social work in relation to the impact of this economic doctrine, the complex frameworks required to resist this global phenomenon and its influence on the core of our ‘business’, our professional identity, professional interventions and commitment to professional values.

It is clear from our team deliberations that whilst we utilize similar terms to describe and articulate social work practice at an international level, that the nature, practice, context and meaning of this practice may differ markedly, regardless of the similarity in which the language is applied. The complexity of international neoliberal discourse, that its implementation is often disguised and that its context is interpreted through a myriad of social, cultural and economic lenses, amplified by limited space makes the ambition of this article challenging.

It is important that the Global Agenda is therefore viewed as a common starting point in which to shine a light in the dark recesses of complexity, to promote critical challenge, professional solidarity and perhaps catch glimpses of our aim of social and economic justice for all through our process of understanding. We hope therefore that this article will be one of a series that helps to promote and galvanize debate on the complex inter-linkages between global and economic policies; their links to global financial interests; national and local social work professional identity and implementation; the individual practitioner; and citizens and users of social work services. Whilst there have been efforts by the profession at various regional levels to take positions against neoliberalism, this has not been uniform and the professions voice has been muted. This is compounded at a global level.

The initial work in the IRSES project to date suggests that most countries may be viewed as lying along a virtual continuum of neoliberal economic policy implementation, with all being subjected by its pressures. However, the use of language, local context, economics and politics makes the development of a simple continuum impossible and rather more complex frameworks are necessary to aid the description, analysis and context of modern-day social work across international boundaries. Some authors suggest identify the difficulty for these difficulties as being the fault of managers (Jones, 2001), others have questioned this proposition (Lambley, 2010).

The impact of neoliberal policies and financialization of our societies is having a variety of intended and unintended consequences for our profession, our values and for global citizens. How we develop national and international collectives, to promote critical debate, develop evidence bases to theorize and engage in the complex relationship between citizens, state and the profession is open for debate. Likewise we need to understand that local action, particularly in the global North, may provide support or succour, intended or otherwise, to neoliberal policy implementation and the promotion of corporate interests in social welfare and public health. The role of individual practitioners and citizens should not be underestimated, but social work needs to be more visible, critical, promote debate as well as critical pedagogy.

In considering the Global Agenda we should consider whether faced with such a powerful economic approach of neoliberalism, and a profession which is often uncritical, reticent to claim credit for its achievements (Jones and Truell, 2012), impacted by low morale and confidence of social work practitioners (DePanfilis and Zlotnik, 2008; Jones, 2005) and a failure to engage at a policy level have resulted in the profession (unconsciously or consciously) aiding neoliberal policy reform (Lorenz, 2005)?

Conclusion

Whilst this article, or indeed the project on which it is based, is unable to resolve or propose simplistic solutions to the problems, challenges and conflicts facing the profession, it is important for the profession to find its collective voice to understand, analyse, promote and develop strategies to deal with the impact of neoliberal reform if it is to remain relevant. The Global Agenda provides a useful rallying point, a driver and an opportunity to develop collective responses and to promote the profession (Jones and Truell, 2012). However, the complexity of global social work research, the need to develop critical models, frameworks and secure international debates is daunting, challenging and rewarding. By working together, developing collaborative research methodologies and collectives we can work, lead and promote the role of social work at a global level. If we think that as individuals we have no power, then as an old African proverb may tell you, you have never spent a night in a closed room with a mosquito.