Professions and Professional Organisation in UK Public Services

Ian Kirkpatrick, Stephen Ackroyd and Richard Walker

Chapter 2 in The New Managerialism and Public Service Professions, 2005, pp 22-48 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to describe the main features of professional service organisation that emerged in the UK during the post war era. We argue that the institutions of the state became sites that the professions colonised and gradually developed over much of the last century. This process gathered pace with the founding of the welfare state after the Second World War. Professions occupied public services with different motivations: either, as in the case of medicine, by moving into them somewhat reluctantly; or, as in the case of social services, because they provided the opportunity for significant development of an occupation. In so doing, however, public organisations were thoroughly adapted to the orientations and practices of the professions that colonised them. The result was a particular kind of institutional regime, founded on an ‘organizational settlement’ between professions and the state (Clarke and Newman, 1997). This ‘settlement’ was neither entirely stable nor conflict free. But it did ensure that, within the confines of the welfare state, professional groups were able to secure varying degrees of occupational closure and institutional autonomy (Evetts, 2002; Flynn, 1999). It also reinforced a unique form of ‘custodial’ organisation at local level. As we shall see a key feature of this mode of organising was that — within broad constraints — welfare professions were able to exert considerable de facto control over both the means and (to some extent) ends of service delivery.

Keywords: Public Service; Welfare State; Social Care; Professional Group; Professional Organisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-50359-5_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230503595

DOI: 10.1057/9780230503595_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().