Introduction

Focusing on the user in the welfare service sector has been emphasised since the 1990s. Governments throughout Western Europe have encouraged users to contribute to the planning and development of social and health services (Crawford et al, 2005). There is also a growing user movement dedicated to promoting rights-based access to social care and a changing role for human services users (Fisher, 2002). Interest in service user perspectives and participation still appears to be episodic, however. In the 1970s service user studies were linked to the growing claims of enhancing the public sector (see Chapter Two). Social commitments had increased as well as problems of bureaucracy. User studies were performed to get an overview of the problems inherent in the interaction between authorities and users. In the 1980s the focus was more on developing the administration and finding more flexible forms of service (for example, Grönroos, 1987). Interestingly, however, studies were rather provider oriented and user perceptions gained only marginal focus and were at most indirectly investigated.

The early 1990s witnessed an audit explosion, at least in Britain, driven by ‘reinvention of governance’, through an increasing interest in quality management that produced a plethora of quality audits (Power, 1997). In the late 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s an increased emphasis on user involvement can be seen as a means of modernising welfare services, at least in the Nordic countries. In Denmark, the modernising programme (www.moderniseringsprogram.dk) states that by modernising the public sector, the government aims to focus services on the needs of citizens. The government is committed to creating public services that are coherent, accessible and responsive, rather than organised for the provider's convenience. Similarly, in Norway the modernising programme emphasises that citizens are able to participate, to know their rights and their responsibilities, to feel secure in front of the authority, and to receive good-quality and accessible services. On a European level, recent policies addressing unemployment in general and the integration of disadvantaged groups in particular have stressed a shift to active labour market policies and the need to mobilise individuals to engage more in their own processes of social inclusion and labour market integration. This is reflected by two key policy trends: a shift towards activation, and individual plans as a fundamental means of activation policies.