Selling the unemployed: the performance of bureaucracies, firms and non-profits in the new Australian "market" for unemployment assistance

Major changes to the organization of welfare programmes indicate the emerge nce of a new welfare state (NWS) model which claims to put an end to the tr aditional "one size fits all" ideal of universality and standardization. Th e stated aim of such arrangements is to improve service for the client, red uce costs for the taxpayer and lift the performance of the system as a whol e. The Labor government reform of the Australian employment assistance syst em between 1994 and 1996, and the Coalition's first modifications of this s cheme in 1997, provide a means to investigate the performance of a NWS syst em which uses private and public agencies to provide a basic, mandatory emp loyment assistance service. Using verified data on the comparative performa nce of Public, private and non-profit agencies and qualitative data from a study of Best Practice among high-performing agencies, the study shows that this system produces greater service variation than the previous universal service system. Overall, the system also does better in achieving employme nt and education outcomes with long-term unemployed clients. However, the s tudy shows that such outcomes differ between different classes of client an d between different types of service provider. In particular, outcomes are lower for the more disadvantaged, and are higher for those who have trainin g programmes available to support them.