What does relational welfare mean?
Many challenges have arisen in our society since the welfare state was established in the 1950’s:
An ageing population, new patterns of illness like diabetes and the increase in cancer, changes to family structures, climate change, and, despite huge rises in wealth for some, the biggest increases in social inequality for over 50 years.
The response of this government and the last one has been to talk about public service reform. Some new ideas – the growth of the hospice movement for cancer care, the early success of Sure Start child development programmes – have made real differences in people’s lives.
But in most cases what reform has meant for those who use and work within our services is a dispiriting increase in bureaucracy. Did you know for example that social workers spend up to 80% of their time on form filling and other tasks around these forms? Did you know that up to 80% of any service budget is spent assessing people’s needs and keeping them out of the service? Such a waste of talent and money when needs are growing.
In order to meet the big and new challenges facing us it is not an answer simply to privatise these old models – which is what so much reform has meant.
At Participle we work on the ground, in the homes and communities of people in very different parts of the UK. We have seen the evidence for what is needed – a truly responsive welfare state that builds the capabilities of all: services that value and build on relationships. A form of welfare that understands that loneliness kills; that you need a social network to find a job when 80% of jobs are never advertised; that you need someone to stand by your side when you have grown up in a community that no longer remembers decent work and you are confronting all the problems of violence, depression and anxiety that go along with this.
Relational Welfare is not just an idea. At Participle we have created new examples of how it can work and how we can pay for it. Several thousand people have benefited so far.
Circle, is our social enterprise which supports older people. The aim is to provide lower level care, and practical tasks, whilst building a rich social network www.circlecentral.com.
Life, our work with families, is an empowering experience for the families who face many difficulties in day to day life. The families have the potential to change their own lives. We provide the framework for those at the front line to create a new relationship with families that starts from a different place, and supports transformation. www.alifewewant.com
Backr is a service that creates opportunites for those seeking work. It provides someone to vouch for you, to support you, and reflect with you. It will build a social network around people within this framework and includes support for the small businesses that will drive job creation. www.backr.net
A relational approach defines not just the goals but the way we can get there. Relationships are the glue that keep us together – we can build public services that foster good relationships.
If you want to read more about our practical examples see here www.participle.net.
If you want to read more about the ideas underpinning our approach see herehttp://www.participle.net/images/uploads/soundings48_cottam2.pdf
Further reading- ‘Relational Welfare’ by Hilary Cottam
A new version for public services. Beveridge 4.0
What does relational welfare mean to you?
Join the debate here.
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This is a fascinating and innovative idea that deserves wide discussion.
I come from a somewhat different background in that I spent my whole working life in the Far East where there was not much state welfare provision and where family and community ties were much stronger that they seem to be here in UK. Charities also were to the fore in provision for welfare services.
But though the state did not do much more than provide the most basic services, through a rather innovative taxation system large amounts of money were channelled into welfare projects like clinics, hospitals, parks and services for the elderly. This was achieved by setting an annual levy on the one organisation that that was permitted to run all legal gambling in the territory. The money raised was ring-fenced for these charitable welfare projects.
As has been said, those employed in state run organisation in UK like the NHS, complain that they are overburdened by bureaucracy. This is an inevitable concomitant of state provision. It is public money that is being used and the state has a duty to ensure that it is being used well. Often this is done badly and every failure and exposure of waste results in yet a further layer of bureaucracy being added. So, in the end, more time is spent on checks and balances, than the core purpose of the organisation.
I am with JS Mill here and believe that where the state undertakes many of these functions, they are done less well, at higher cost and with more constricting bureaucracy than if done by non-state organisations. Which is why, in the relational welfare model, I feel there is a need to debate the role of the state.
Elsewhere, in a blog related to this page, a mother has written of her experiences with provision of support for her children in two different council areas. But no-one seems to ask why and how much support should the state provide in this area?
While the provision of basic paediatric medical and health services may well have to be the task of the state if we are to try to stop some from falling though the gaps, other things the mother describes are more in the nature of support for her in raising the children. She talks of loneliness and a sense of isolation comes through. The clinic became a substitute family.
And this is the point – the state has taken over roles that used to be performed by families who often lived close by if not in the same building or street. Further more we now tend to look upon the state as a surrogate family and expect these things to be done.
If relational welfare is to succeed, then we need to rekindle relationships with and in families, with and in neighbourhoods and see people as individuals within a social structure rather than atomised entities interacting with the state and only valued on a cost per capita basis.
Wish you all the best in this worthwhile venture.
Thank you very much for your thoughts Robert. Let’s keep talking!