The roller coaster ride begins

Garlick's (2012) history of organisational changes within the state welfare system documents a roller coaster of structural reform from the mid-1980s. This process was generated by theoretical and practical tensions that have influenced (and been influenced by) continuous swings between centralised administration and more localised frameworks, including various hybrid arrangements. Garlick locates child welfare and protection services within shifting perceptions of the appropriate role for the state in managing social problems and promoting well-being. Although his account is avowedly apolitical, it illustrates the way in which ideological currents have impacted on the preferred mandate, structure and operation of state services. Child protection policy and practice is clearly connected with the managerial and accountability mechanisms deemed appropriate to the political visions of the day.

Implementation of these visions has seldom taken account of the consuming and resource-intensive realities of child protection social work practice (Hyslop, 2009). It is trite, but essentially accurate, to say that the intent of the CYP&tF Act – and, by extension, the mandate of PtAT – was increasingly distorted and frustrated by a lack of resourcing in an overstretched practice climate. In turn, this climate was shaped by competing priorities and conflicting ideological currents.

The reformist drive of the CYP&tF Act can be broadly aligned to socially liberal elements within the 1980s’ Labour Party in Aotearoa, as opposed to the interventionist social conservatism of previous National Party governments. However, notions of community devolution and family responsibility also found political traction beneath the umbrella of neoliberalism, which came to prominence from the mid-1980s. In fact, the former provided a convenient ideological Trojan Horse for the latter. While many social workers saw the new legislation as an opportunity to redress the individual fallout from social and racial injustice (Hyslop, 2007), at a deeper level, the trajectory of practice reform was influenced by a global and local shift in economic and political power – a restoking of the engine of capitalism (Harvey, 2005).

The welfare state was remodelled within the rubric of economic rationalism, leading to the privatisation or contracting out of government services, as well as the creation of quasi-private bodies such as Crown companies and state-owned enterprises (Kelsey, 1995). The ‘residual’ delivery of direct state services was increasingly subject to audit and control – maximising ‘bang for the buck’ by mimicking a business-like ‘production efficiency’ model (Schick, 1996).