| Summary: | The issue of Local Welfare Assistance (LWA) has re-merged in policy debates because of the ongoing impact of Covid-19, followed by the recent cost-of-living-crisis, nevertheless it has been notably absent from academic literature. This thesis is an interrogation of these LWA schemes: a localised, discretionary fund devolved to upper-tier local authorities across England and devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales to relieve exceptional expenses for food or household items. More particularly, the thesis explores how local authorities or meso-level actors exercise discretion in LWA design decisions. The research is based on three empirical strands: a content analysis of local authority webpages that detail LWA; and two case studies of schemes, studied through a documentary analysis of council meeting minutes and ten interviews with local authority and third sector members. This thesis uses both top-down and bottom-up perspectives on discretion to bring the meso-level to the forefront. It begins by outlining the design of LWA across England. It finds that meso-level actors make decisions by drawing on different discretionary strategies, which causes marginalisation and exclusion of vulnerable communities. These include rationing, rigid rule creation, and displacing. The focus of the study is then narrowed to delve into the displacing and dispersing of discretion through the outsourcing of LWA to third sector organisations. It argues that third sector involvement builds LWA into an incredibly complex ‘local ecosystem of support’. This ecosystem, premised on collective responsibility, is maintained and structured through relational discretion, which is the dispersal of responsibility across multiple actors in the network. This reveals two things: the multi-faceted roles of third sector organisations and the enhanced part that third sector organisations play in co-designing and administering LWA. Both are fundamental in understanding how LWA schemes are being operated and gauging the implications of localisation on claimants’ ability to achieve administrative justice.
|
|---|