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PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: THE CASE OF COMMUNITY CARE
Author(s) -
WEBB ADRIAN,
WISTOW GERALD
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9299.1983.tb00499.x
Subject(s) - constraint (computer aided design) , public economics , government (linguistics) , extant taxon , resource (disambiguation) , service (business) , public policy , economics , public expenditure , benchmark (surveying) , meaning (existential) , community service , business , public finance , economic growth , political science , macroeconomics , public relations , mechanical engineering , computer network , philosophy , economy , psychotherapist , linguistics , computer science , engineering , biology , psychology , geodesy , evolutionary biology , geography
This article explores the contention that the conventions of public expenditure accounting conceal, rather than reveal, the real nature and implications of resource trends. A benchmark — a constant level of service output — is established as a basis for examining the relationship between trends in expenditure inputs and service outputs. Changes in unit costs are identified as the major source of deviation between expenditure and output trends. The impact of resource constraint on policy and policy‐implementation is then examined in relation to one, essentially stable, area of policy in the personal social services: community care. The meaning of the term‘policy’ is far from straightforward and community care is best understood as the interaction of relatively independent streams of policy, towards service outputs and resource inputs, extant in both central and local government. Mechanisms by which policy streams could be reconciled are of particular interest and an innovative example — joint finance — is examined in some detail.