'Relational Contracting and Service Delivery' 

Presented by Professor Anna Yeatman (Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy, UWS)

Abstract:

Many (probably most at some point in their lifetime) citizens depend for their wellbeing and sometimes their life chances on public funded service delivery.  The conduct of the service delivery relationship is the key to the effectiveness of service delivery, assuming of course that the funding is more or less adequate.  Effectiveness means what counts as good-enough and appropriate service from both service-deliverer and -user points of view.  Relational contracting can be a valuable approach to governing the service-delivery relationship.  I discuss a case study of this approach. Relational contracting avoids the legalization of relationships while skilling people in negotiated relationship.  However the use of relational contracting in service delivery can be distorted to fit an imposed form of pseudo-contract.  I briefly discuss this with reference to ‘conditional welfare’ regimes, ones where service users are permitted to access the service only on condition of compliance with certain requirements of them. The book I draw on for this discussion is Yeatman with Dowsett, Fine and Gursansky Individualization and the Delivery of Welfare Services (Palgrave 2009)

Biography:

Anna Yeatman is currently Professor and Director of the Centre for Citizenship and Public Policy, University of Western Sydney. Prior to that she held a Canada Research Chair in Political Science at the University of Alberta.  She is the author of three books, author or co-author of four edited collections, and of numerous journal articles and book chapters.

For further information contact:

Dr Nadirsyah Hosen
Lecturer
Faculty of Law
University of Wollongong
NSW Australia
Email: hosen@uow.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 4221 4192
Fax: +61 2 4221 3188