Young people with disabilities face a time of great stress as they move from child to adult care, which profoundly impacts them and their families. They 'transition' from very high and cohering levels of care, until they reach a point, determined by age, when they are receiving low levels of far less cohesive care. Further, the propensity shown by the Scottish Government to devolve down the responsibility for service and local policy delivery, can lead to unforeseen consequences resulting in variation in experiences. Does this devolution of responsibility, to local bodies and service users, produce a valuable personalisation of delivery or a worrying 'postcode lottery'? I draw on policy concepts to examine these two expectations:- 'street level bureaucracy' and the 'personalisation' agenda highlight the potential for discretion, learning and transfer, and accountability theory, highlight the potential to cooperate or conform to the same basic standards. I examine the case of young disabled people in Scotland moving from child orientated to adult care to show, through semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, that there is some cooperation between various professions, but they make sense of policy from different perspectives. I found that, while broad parameters set by the Scottish Government were adhered to, council and health board protocols often varied, meaning that, in some cases, a house address number dictates the level of service delivered. The research is particularly important and timely in that it focuses on Scotland, is cross-professional in focus, has profound social implications and contributes to knowledge in placing 'transition' in the context of public policy theory. It confirms the importance of street level bureaucracy in a new context but, unexpectedly, I found that professionals would welcome increased accountability and outcome measurement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:759979 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Russell, Siabhainn C. |
| Contributors | Cairney, Paul ; Bennie, Lynn G. |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=238593 |
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