45126-Invest. Qual-No111

Investment in Quality●●●minimised the risk of work disincentives, which can riskpoverty and unacceptable levels of inequality;The consensus-orientation of both the society and the policysystem, though it has many advantages when well co-ordinated,makes socially beneficial policies and institutions vulnerable toblockage by narrow interests;Centralised and/or bureaucratic systems for providing socialservices run the risk of rigidity, inefficiency, high-cost andlimited response to citizens’ diverse and changing needs; andThe institutional legacy created a mixed economy of welfarewhich, though it can be highly targeted on the least well off, isvulnerable in a number of ways: it can become a ‘two-tier’ system;it can delegate social services to organisations that adopthierarchical and inflexible modes of delivery;it may not respond flexibly to new social needs andchanging circumstances;structural problems in service delivery may provide adisincentive to greater welfare effort and encouragedisengagement from the public system;welfare benefits may progress unevenly or fall behindwider income trends; it can provide inadequately for those not attached to theformal labour market.In summary, these social vulnerabilities arise from three generalsources:●●●The legacy of the past, that yields a society containing greaterinequalities of opportunity and outcome than is desirable;The economic context, which requires competitiveness, highlevels of employment and which can give rise to extensivegrowth (or decline); andThe organisational challenge of providing quality publicservices in an age when citizens’ needs are varied, complex and134