Innovation and Patchwork Partnerships: Advice Services in Austere Times

In the UK’s austerity regime, government spending has been slashed, while audit regimes tie up officers of charitable organisations in bureaucracy rather than leaving them free to attend to the substance of their jobs. These funding-cuts-masquerading-as-market-based-restructuring have dras...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Alice Forbess, Deborah James
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2017-12-01
Series:Oñati Socio-Legal Series
Subjects:
Online Access:http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/862
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Summary:In the UK&rsquo;s austerity regime, government spending has been slashed, while audit regimes tie up officers of charitable organisations in bureaucracy rather than leaving them free to attend to the substance of their jobs. These funding-cuts-masquerading-as-market-based-restructuring have drastically affected the provision of advice to welfare dependents. But advisers, and the organisations they work for, piece together new patchworks of funds, devise new forms of face-to-face advice, and rework the boundaries of the law. Local authority funds are invested to yield returns from centrally-funded sources. People are helped to honour their tax commitments while challenging debts incurred from the incorrect award and reclaim of benefits, and to pay their council tax and rent. For advisers, austerity is more a matter of seeking new resource flows, inventing novel interventions, and creating new spaces where justice may be sought and found, than of passively accepting funding cuts.<br /><br /> En el Reino Unido, las pol&iacute;ticas de recortes de fondos maquilladas como restructuraciones basadas en el mercado han afectado dr&aacute;sticamente la provisi&oacute;n a los dependientes de la asistencia social. Pero los asesores y las organizaciones para las que trabajan forman nuevos tejidos de fondos financieros, ingenian nuevas formas de ayudar en persona y reconfiguran los l&iacute;mites de la ley. Los fondos financieros de los gobiernos locales se invierten para obtener r&eacute;ditos de fuentes de financiaci&oacute;n centralizada. Se ayuda a la gente a cumplir con sus obligaciones fiscales y, al mismo tiempo, a recortar las deudas generadas por una incorrecta concesi&oacute;n y reclamaci&oacute;n de prestaciones, y a pagar sus tasas municipales y sus alquileres. Para los asesores, la austeridad es una cuesti&oacute;n de buscar nuevos flujos de recursos, idear nuevas formas de intervenci&oacute;n y crear nuevos espacios en los que la justicia pueda ser buscada y hallada.<br /><strong><br /> DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN:</strong> <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=3056205" target="_blank">http://ssrn.com/abstract=3056205</a>
ISSN:2079-5971