Professionalism, Payment by Results and the Probation Service: A Qualitative Study of the Impact of Marketisation on Professional Autonomy
In: Work, employment and society: a journal of the British Sociological Association, Volume 36, Issue 6, p. 1118-1138
Abstract
This article utilises Foucauldian understandings of the sociology of the professions to explore how marketising reforms to probation services in England and Wales, and the implementation of a 'Payment by Results' (PbR) mechanism in particular, have impacted professional autonomy. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a probation office within a privately owned Community Rehabilitation Company, it argues that an inability to control the socio-economic organisation of probation work has rendered the service susceptible to challenges to autonomy over technique. PbR was proffered as a means to restore practitioner discretion; however, the article demonstrates that probation staff have been compelled to economise their autonomy, adapting their conduct to conform to market-related forms of accountability. In this sense, it presents the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms to probation as a case study of the impact of marketisation on the autonomy of practitioners working within a public sector profession.
Report Issue