Ruling practices and community-based services : government funding of a voluntary agency
Date
1994
Authors
Joerin, Carol Ann
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Abstract
This research arose out my experience of working in voluntary agencies funded by British Columbia's Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP), Ministry of Health and Ministry Responsible for Seniors. I experienced a disjuncture between how ADP's system of management documents organized my work and how I performed my work. In this research I wanted to explore this disjuncture and understand how it is created.
To conduct my study I performed institutional ethnography which was developed by Dorothy E. Smith. With this interpretive approach I used a voluntary agency funded by ADP as a case study. My research question was "How does ADP's system of management documents organize work in a voluntary agency funded by ADP to provide prevention and treatment services to youth?" To respond to this question I began by exploring the disjuncture which exists between ADP's official version of the agency's work and the reality of that work from the standpoint of agency staff.
I observed how as a result of the Ministry of Health's funding process, the agency had to generate a product for the Ministry in order to receive funding. In this approach the Ministry acted as a buyer and the agency acted as a seller of services. Services to youth became the product the agency was contracted to generate.
As a result of its contractual relationship with the Ministry of Health, the agency participated in ADP's hierarchical accountability structure. This structure penetrated the agency's day-to-day work and reorganized it to serve the Ministry's administrative needs. On behalf of the board of directors, the executive director became an agent of the Ministry of Health within the agency.
The terms of the contracts helped create a division of labour amongst staff and separated treatment from prevention. From the Ministry's hierarchical accountability structure, ADP's system of management documents brought the responsibility for demonstrating fiscal accountability to the desks of line workers. Reports based on statistical data represented the services they provided to youth. There was a line of fault between these textual accounts of work and the real work staff performed.
All these practices served to devalue the agency's board of directors and exclude them from the decision making process. While espousing the value of community-based services, ADP used the board of directors to provide the expertise, workers and a facility to produce services which met the Ministry's needs. Working in "partnership" with a community agency meant that ADP had all the authority in the relationship. Because the agency was dependent on government funding for its programs, it accepted this relationship to ensure its survival.
My analysis sheds light on how government ruling is accomplished as an ongoing practice in the day-to-day activities of line workers. It shows that the notion of hierarchy is not merely a theoretical concept, but a process in a government - voluntary agency partnership in which power and authority is used to coordinate, control and regulate work. ADP uses the concept of a system of care to rationalize this process.
One result of this is that clients are placed on the lowest rung of the hierarchy. Community-based services means that ADP's system of accountability excludes their experiences. Because there is no agreement between voluntary agencies and government on what accountability means, accountability does not exist. For it to exist, government and voluntary agencies must understand the true nature of their contractual relationship.