Housing must be the most bureaucratic of all local government services or so it must appear to those trying to access the service.The response to a request for help by someone in what to them is a fairly desperate situation often appears to be bureaucratic rather than sympathetic a case of quoting rules and legislation. If the law is an ass because it is often applied without commonsense, humanity or natural justice then much the same can be said of housing law and local authority rules. Yet there is a good reason for this apparent inflexibility and lack of discretion. Housing is in short supply there are many more families in need than there is available suitable accommodation.How should scarce resources be allocated? Should we let individual housing officers or their managers decide, where would the consistency be and how would we ensure that this did not lead to favoring family and friends or bribery? So there needs to be clear criteria for who is eligible, what circumstances give a higher priority and these rules need to be written down and available so that we know what they are and can challenge any decision that does not fit with the rules.If Housing currently holds the title for the most bureaucratic service in local government then Social Services in particular Adult Social Care Service are not far behind and it looks increasingly like the NHS is joining in. Year on year budget cuts have seen adult social care service across the country revise their eligibility criteria so that only those most at risk and of the highest dependency qualify for a service.Whilst the criteria is set nationally in the form of four bands of need, low, moderate substantial and critical each local authority decides which levels of need it can afford to meet. Most local authorities now only offer services to people in substantial or critical need, some only offer it to people in critical need. What this means is that social workers and their managers have little discretion or flexibility in who they offer services too.What must it be like to join the caring profession only to spend most of your time explaining why you can’t provide help? The introduction of commissioning boards into the NHS is likely to have a similar effect. At one time there were no criteria for who had an operation/treatment it was a medical decision the doctor decided.Doctors will still assess patients to determine their medical needs but because more people will have a need than can be meet within the budget the commissioners will decide on the priorities. We have been seeing this for sometime in the actions of NICE whose role is to place controls on the use of expensive drugs and treatments where once your doctor decided. Which is why some drugs and treatments are not available on the NHS leading those who can afford to pay to go to the USA. As demand/need out strips the budget public services are governed by more rules and tighter eligibility criteria leaving housing officers, social workers and doctors with little discretion or flexibility about who to help. Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by Russell see www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
