Mark Considine

University of Melbourne | MSD · Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Regardless of their prevalence and considerable expansion since the 1980s, evidence concerning the impact of welfare conditionality and marketisation in active labour market policies (ALMPs) has been inconclusive and mostly limited to developed and transition economies. Using mixed methods for collecting and analysing data, this study investigates...

Countries are increasingly looking to ‘digitalise’ how public services are delivered, with welfare‐to‐work and public employment services being key sites of reform. It is hoped that digitalisation can achieve efficient, effective, and targeted services for those in need and there is now a growing body of research on both the opportunities and pitfa...

The exercise of administrative discretion by street-level workers plays a key role in shaping citizens’ access to welfare and employment services. Governance reforms of social services delivery, such as performance-based contracting, have often been driven by attempts to discipline this discretion. In several countries, these forms of market govern...

Buying and Selling the Poor ventures behind the scenes of the multibillion-dollar welfare-to-work system, offering new insights into how Australia responds to unemployment and disadvantage. As the authors tell the story of four local employment offices, they paint a vivid picture of a critically important social service which many people are aware...

This paper considers the link between policy tools and governance modes – the characteristic ways frontline staff are meta-governed. It asks: Are substantive policy tools coupled to procedural tools (governance modes) that can guide local service delivery agencies and the work of individuals delivering welfare services? The substantive policy tools...

Market instruments are increasingly used to drive innovation and efficiency in public services. Meanwhile, many governments recognize the need for services to be more personalized and ‘user‐centred’. This was a key aim of major welfare‐to‐work reforms in both the UK and Australia over the past decade, which sought to achieve personalization through...

Australia's welfare-to-work system has been subject to ongoing political contestation and policy reform since the 1990s. In this paper we take a big picture look at the Australian system over time, re-visiting our earlier analysis of the impact of marketisation on flexibility at the frontline over the first ten years of the Australian market in emp...

A key question concerning the marketisation of employment services is the interaction between performance management systems and frontline client-selection practices. While the internal sorting of clients for employability by agencies has received much attention, less is known about how performance management shapes official categorisation practice...

Welfare recipients are increasingly subject to various forms of work-related conditionality that, critics argue, presuppose a “pathological” theory of unemployment that stigmatizes welfare recipients as de-motivated to work. Drawing on surveys of Australian frontline employment services staff, we examine the extent to which caseworkers attribute be...

Australia’s welfare-to-work system has undergone radical changes since the 1990s, with service delivery fully privatized in 2003 and incentives of various kinds introduced to underpin jobseeker and employment consultant activation. Informed by New Public Management (NPM), the reforms are intended to improve effectiveness and efficiency by addressin...

In September 2009, the British Government launched a new employment assistance model called Flexible New Deal. It was soon replaced by Work Programme in 2011. Both prioritized what is often called a ‘black box’ approach to public employment assistance, whereby the government purchaser focuses predominantly on outcomes and does not seek to direct ag...

Life extension is one of the major end-of-life decisions in management of the industrial assets which must be made based on all information gathered from system operation and maintenance to ensure that the process is feasible. Most of the existing life extension feasibility assessment models are restricted solely to either “technical” or “economic”...

The redevelopment of the welfare regimes of former socialist states since the terminal crisis of state socialism in the early 1980s is an emerging field of scholarship. This article contributes to this work by investigating welfare-to-work in a less-studied case, contemporary Vietnam. The research indicates that Vietnam’s newly emerged employment a...

This report details the results of the 2016 Australian survey of frontline employment services professionals. It is the first major output from the project, From entitlement to experiment: the new governance of welfare to work which commenced in early 2016 and is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and our industry partners: the Nationa...

Provides a concise overview of the history of employment services in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands Contrains original data, interviews, and surveys from over a fifteen year period Provides a comparative analysis Getting Welfare to Work traces the radical reform of the Australian, UK, and Dutch public employment services systems...

Contracting-out Welfare Services focuses on the design and overhaul of welfare-to-work systems around the world in the light of the radical re-design of the welfare system; internationally based authors utilise a national/program case study, considering employment services policy and activation practices. International contributors bring a global...

This article investigates strategic changes in the governance of not-for-profit (NFP) boards in response to Australia's fully contracted employment services system. Of interest are changes in board demography, behaviour, procedures and dynamics, with special attention to the impact of those changes on boards' identity as a representation of communi...

Scholars and policymakers have long known that there is a strong link between human development and spending on key areas such as education and health. However, many states still neglect these considerations in favour of competing priorities, such as expanding their armies. This book examines how states arrive at these decisions, analysing how demo...

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In thi...

This article investigates strategic changes in the governance of not-for-profit (NFP) boards in response to Australia's fully contracted employment services system. Of interest are changes in board demography, behaviour, procedures and dynamics, with special attention to the impact of those changes on boards' identity as a representation of communi...

This article investigates strategic changes in the governance of not-for-profit (NFP) boards in response to Australia's fully contracted employment services system. Of interest are changes in board demography, behaviour, procedures and dynamics, with special attention to the impact of those changes on boards' identity as a representation of communi...

Becoming more businesslike is seen by many not-for-profit (NFP) agencies as necessary for survival, if not expansion, under the conditions required by New Public Management (NPM). Charged with delivering social services in a competitive environment, NFP agencies must often compete with each other, and with for-profit (FP) organisations, in order to...

Public policy research typically neglects the role of the individual policy actor with most accounts of the policy process instead privileging the role of governmental systems, institutions, processes, organizations; organised interests or networks of multiple actors. The policy design literature suffers from similar limitations, with very few auth...

Governmental systems are deeply inscribed by processes of path dependence and lock-ins, yet they are also required to play a central role in both policy reform and institutional transformation. This paper offers an account of governance networks and posits a solution to the traditional problem of dynamic inertia in governmental institutions and thu...

Design involves an account of expertise which foregrounds implicit, heuristic skills. Most models of policy making have a stronger interest in structural and exogenous pressures on decision making. Research suggests that high‐level experts develop unique capacities to process data, read a situation, and see imaginative solutions. By linking some of...

titre>Résumé Le système d’emploi australien a été complètement reconstruit par trois gouvernements successifs ; aussi bien à droite qu’à gauche de l’échiquier politique, l’accord s’est fait sur une privatisation des services préférable au « tout public » ou à un système mixte État et opérateurs privés. Néanmoins, l’impact de la privatisation en Aus...

The relationship between participation in civic and political activities and membership of voluntary associations is now well established. What is less clear is the relative impacts of how much time people spend on group activities (associational intensity), and the number and type of groups that individuals are involved with (associational scope)....

The systemic reform of employment services in OECD countries was driven by New Public Management (NPM) and then post-NPM reforms, when first-phase changes such as privatization were amended with ‘joined up’ processes to help manage fragmentation. This article examines the networking strategies of ‘street-level’ employment services staff for the imp...

Effective public administration relies on the passage of information through interpersonal communication networks. While we have a vast research literature concerning formal structures and roles in organizations, including public agencies and government institutions, we know far less about the flow of information through semiformal, voluntary inter...

In 1998, we were witnessing major changes in frontline social service delivery across the OECD and this was theorised as the emergence of a post-Fordist welfare state. Changes in public management thinking, known as New Public Management (NPM), informed this shift, as did public choice theory. A 1998 study of Australia's then partially privatised e...

This chapter delves into networks and their relationship to innovation inside government. The concept of ‘networks’ is investigated, and an analytical framework is established through which the role of networks in the innovation process can be explored. It is argued that there is value in adopting a network approach for the study of innovation insi...

This study examines the impact of adminstrative reforms upon the work of frontline staff in the employment services of three refrom-oriented countries – Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. These changes have involved greater use of private agents, more detailed performance contracts, clearer expectations about outcomes for job-seeker...

Innovation is regarded as a critical driver of the global economy and of post-industrial societies. New products and novel processes are constantly transforming these worlds. But innovation is far more than a wellspring for new machines and consumer toys. It also drives fundamental changes in the formal and informal means we use to organize societi...

This book examines the different normative approaches politicians, bureaucrats and community actors use to frame the innovation puzzle, arguing that these create specific cultures of innovation. The authors explore the role of formal institutions and informal networks in promoting and impeding governmental innovation. © Mark Considine, Jenny M. Lew...

The past two decades have witnessed a fundamental transformation in the nature, role, and responsibilities of the public sector in most modern liberal democracies. Mounting community demands for better, more responsive and more efficient service delivery, coupled with a desire to restrain spending, have placed increasing pressure on public service...

Up until now we have focused on the networking that politicians and bureaucrats do outside their organizations, through three measures of external interactivity — a contact matrix, conference attendance and membership of associations. This demonstrated that there are substantial differences in the way these governments deal with their environments,...

The City of Kilbourne sits at the foothills of the Dandenong Mountains, 20 kilometres southeast of Melbourne, and is home to over 140,000 residents. First settled in the 1830s as a cattle-run, Kilbourne is now one of the largest and most rapidly growing urban centres in Victoria. The municipality sprawls across 114 square kilometres and is characte...

The previous chapter showed the importance of innovation norms and procedures in our city governments, and provided some clues on local innovation culture and variations across roles and positions. To better understand the way governments create innovations we now shift our attention to the role played by a certain class of objects called embedded...

The first part of our study has thrown light on the normative aspects of innovation inside government and has laid the groundwork for a better understanding of the role of procedures such as elections and statutory meetings in helping and hindering innovation. We have shown that different governments are more introverted or extroverted in their con...

We now come to the point where we draw together all our previous examinations of innovation norms and procedures, our various explorations of networking activities and network structures, to make some coherent claims about innovation inside government. As the last four chapters have demonstrated, the key innovators in our four city governments occu...

Innovation is the engine of the global economy. New products and new processes for getting things done have transformed consumer societies, altered the technology of war, and laid siege to the traditional world. The digital revolution has already delivered remarkable changes in entertainment, communication and information management. Email, the Wor...

The City of Melville, home to 107,000 residents, is located north east of Melbourne and covers just over 110 square kilometres. It is marked by a diverse topography ranging from tightly clustered dormitory suburbs in the west to picturesque rural centres in the east. The city as it currently stands was created in 1994 following local government ama...

The City of Millside, formed in 1994, covers just 32 square kilometres west of Melbourne’s CBD and is home to 60,000 residents. Historically the Millside area has served as one of Melbourne’s key industrial centres, with a strong focus on manufacturing, chemical production, textiles, food processing and defence industries. In the late 1930s, follow...

The City of Parkside is located on the shore of the bay that sits immediately south of Melbourne’s CBD in Victoria and is home to over 80,000 residents. It is one of the oldest areas of European settlement in the state having been first settled in 1855, although the existing city government was only formed in 1994 following the forced and unpopular...

Previous studies of the impact of gender upon legislatures have shown conflicting findings regarding the backgrounds, qualifications and types of men and women serving as legislators. Women appear to have narrowed the gap in terms of some of these background variables but still face significant obstacles. This study examines the impact of major ins...

This paper examines aspects of the recent changes to public sector management practices in Australia from the viewpoint of community organisations in the human services sector. Several of the major changes are categorised under the heading of corporate management and links and contrasts are established between this approach to social administration...

A corporate management framework has been the basis for a transformation of Australian public administration in recent years. Program budgeting, corporate planning, performance contracts, program evaluation and new forms of efficiency scrutiny are among the techniques introduced. They stem from a dominant paradigm of technical and instrumental rati...

We live in an age of profound transformations. Global economic pressures, the digital revolution and major shifts in family structure show us that contemporary Western societies are significantly different to those of previous generations. The sociologists tell us that this shift in traditional attachments is matched by a new drive for personal ide...

When it first appeared, partnership seemed to be a temporary phenomenon on the margins of public policy. For some time, it was mainly associated with tackling severe local problems, and many assumed it would disappear once prosperity returned. Later it became associated with ‘public–private’ infrastructure contracts before being used more widely as...

During the past ten years partnerships of various types have become a frontline for the reform of government practices in many countries. The reasons for this are diverse. In many cases this reform movement is linked to the desire to streamline traditional bureaucracies and help them to break from a traditional vertical focus in which problems are...

This chapter studies five dimensions of a partnership case study: mandate, structure, resources, activities and dynamics. In considering the case and its dimensions, we will identify themes and issues relevant to the further development of governance theory for partnership initiatives and consider the transformative potential of network governance...

This book provides a comparative study of the use of partnerships and new forms of governance to achieve policy goals that promote economic and social development. In addition to a consideration of the theoretical challenges posed by these institutional developments, the book reviews recent experiences in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.

Innovation and innovators inhabit an institutional space, which is partially defined by formal positions and partially by informal networks. This article investigates the role of politicians and bureaucrats in fostering innovation inside government and provides an empirical explanation of who the innovators are, whether this is mostly an attribute...

Abstract Universities currently face new environmental demands and significant internal complexities that appear to challenge their traditional modes of work and organization — and thus their very identities. In this essay, Mark Considine argues that the prospect of such changes requires us to reflect carefully upon the theoretical and normative un...

Drawing on transitional labor market (TLM) theory, this introductory chapter highlights major themes, overviews the contributions to this volume and suggests a future agenda for policy makers. The focus of applied research projects has been the impact of post-modem social transformations on systems of social protection, looking through the lens of...

The process of reform in OECD countries has now produced a remarkable range of models, plans and trajectories involving partnerships at the local level (Balloch and Taylor, 2001; McCarthy, 1998; Considine, 2001).

The movement away from a unified public service towards the development of quasi-markets based on the involvement of private firms and non-profit organisations can be viewed as the most radical change to state-society relations since the advent of the modern welfare state. While there is a growing literature on the value this contracting regime has...

Networks arise when actors become engaged in ongoing interaction. Networks describe the architecture of this interactivity and networking defines the style and intensity of actor-to-actor engagement. Applied to public policy, networking arises from the ongoing interactions of officials in different agencies who use professional contacts to resolve...

Theories of democratic government traditionally have relied on a model of organization in which officials act impartially, accept clear lines of accountability and supervision, and define their day–to–day activities through rules, procedures, and confined discretion. In the past 10 years, however, a serious challenge to this ideal has been mounted...

Major changes to the organization of welfare programmes indicate the emergence of a new welfare state (NWS) model which claims to put an end to the traditional "one size fits all" ideal of universality and standardization. The stated aim of such arrangements is to improve service for the client, reduce costs for the taxpayer and lift the performanc...

One of the most important aspects of policymaking in any political system is the pre-decision stage at which a potentially wide range of concerns and preferences are fashioned into some actionable list of proposals or a recognizable hierarchy of priorities. As well as indicating which concerns may dominate the thinking of officials who will later t...

In the standard works, accountability is defined as the legal obligation to respect the legitimate interests of others affected by decisions, programs, and interventions. This has usually meant that agencies obey those in the line of authority above them. However, the simplicity of this doctrine is often contradicted by the demands of contracting‐o...

Contemporary debates concerning the nature of ‘new governance’ typically focus upon the shifting roles played by bureaucracies, networks and markets in the provision of public services (Kooiman 1993; Ormsby 1988). At the core of these recent changes we find a strong interest in having private agents deliver public services. Sometimes this is expres...

Many governments have attempted to reform their public management systems over the past decade. But how do reforms play out at the frontline of government where the work is done? We looked at the impacts of system changes on frontline staff. In an effort to understand the actual work orientations of frontline bureaucrats, we identified four distinc...

Contemporary theoretical debates point to a transformation of societies and social organisations away from universal forms of mass production and consumption, organised through mass institutions, towards smaller, diversified, entrepreneurial units linked together by new forms of market and network co-ordination. This greater diversity is also held...

The filtering of potential policy issues from a large range of possibilities to a relatively small list of agenda items allows the organisation of power and influence within a policy sector to be examined. This study investigated power and influence in health policy agenda-setting in one State of Australia (Victoria) in the years 1991, 1992 and 199...

This study compares the experiences of women state legislators in six U.S. states and the six states and two territories in Australia. We are interested in how women's experiences of acceptance and assimilation differ between the two systems. We also examine whether or not women's experiences differ depending upon their proportion within the state...

In the new ‘Post-Fordist’ public sector the previously accepted distinctions between the market and hierarchy are transformed by the advent of a new organisational form, the ‘market bureaucracy’. The article identifies four core characteristics of this new type and compares these to the organising principles of the three other administrative regime...

This study compares the experiences of women state legislators in six U.S. states and the six states and two territories in Australia, We are interested in how women's experiences of acceptance and assimilation differ between the two systems. We also examine whether or not women's experiences differ depending upon their proportion within the state...