Poor Neighbourhoods and Poor Services - SAGE Journals

46(13) 2907–2927, December 2009

Poor Neighbourhoods and Poor Services: Evidence on the ‘Rationing’ of Environmental Service Provision to Deprived Neighbourhoods Annette Hastings [Paper first received, November 2007; in final form, October 2008]

Abstract There is growing political concern that poor neighbourhoods often receive inadequate public services, although little research to date which explores how and why this may be the case. Earlier research on environmental services has suggested that poor neighbourhoods do not tend to get levels of this service which are proportionate to their needs. This paper extends an earlier analysis to explore the processes by which this underprovision occurs. It is argued that three ‘rationing’ processes are central to explanations: institutional rationing which describes a systemic bias against fully meeting the needs of poor neighbourhoods; reactive rationing in which service practices and standards are varied between neighbourhoods; and political rationing where service levels and standards are sensitive to variations in the political resources of neighbourhoods. The analysis reveals how these rationing processes produce levels of environmental maintenance in poor neighbourhoods which are insufficient to address needs.

Introduction Within urban studies over the past 30 years or so, there have been waves of concern about, and analysis of, the nature and quality of public service provision in poor neighbourhoods. Thus, in the 1970s and 1980s, a substantial US literature examined whether poor, Black urban neighbourhoods received a just share

of urban services relative to better-off neighbourhoods (see, for example Lineberry, 1977; Rich, 1979; Mladenka, 1981; Hero, 1986), whilst in parallel, UK urban geography explored whether urban services were systematically biased against disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Smith; 1977; Kirby and Pinch, 1983; Pinch; 1985). However, by the early 1990s, there was little sustained

Annette Hastings is in the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, 25 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RS, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. 0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online © 2009 Urban Studies Journal Limited DOI: 10.1177/0042098009344995

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analysis of how public services served poor neighbourhoods, although some authors continued to suggest that service quality was problematic (for example, McCormick and Philo, 1995; Jordan, 1996). The late 1990s saw a resurgence of interest, in the UK at least, in the quality of public service provision in urban neighbourhoods (for example, Bramley et al., 1998; Duffy, 2000; Lupton, 2004; ODPM, 2005; Wheeler et al., 2005; Hastings et al., 2005; Hastings, 2007). This interest was fuelled by the prominence given by the New Labour administrations of the late 1990s and early 2000s to neighbourhoods generally, as well as to the interplay between deprivation and public services (see for example, SEU, 1998, 2000, 2001; Scottish Executive, 2002). Despite 30 years of research, however, the extent to which poor neighbourhoods do actually receive poor public services and the processes which lead to this are not clear. The need for further research is apparent. Recent research in relation to the provision of environmental services in different neighbourhood contexts in the UK contributes to addressing this research gap (Hastings et al., 2005; Hastings, 2007). The analysis presented in Hastings 2007 suggested that some poor neighbourhoods were not receiving levels of environmental service provision proportionate to their level of need for that service, arguing that this was evidence that such neighbourhoods were being poorly served in this sphere (Hastings, 2007, pp. 911–914). This paper takes this evidence and argument as its starting-point and seeks to explore the kinds of processes at play within the provision of environmental services which could contribute to such an outcome. It does so by examining afresh a key theme within the existing literature on public service provision: the nature and consequences of service ‘rationing’. The concept of ‘rationing’ refers to the processes and outcomes of decision-making

about the allocation of scarce resources … [and is] a characteristic of all those publicly provided services and programmes … where constrained budgets meet unconstrained demands for resources (Klein et al., 1990, p. 9).

Rationing therefore describes the mechanisms through which services are allocated in order to limit overall levels of demand and, crucially, to manage competing claims for particular levels or types of service. Most work on rationing within public services has been done in the public and social policy fields, and has mainly examined service distribution to client groups rather than to neighbourhoods. For example, within the health care field there is a literature on how rules or devices such as waiting-lists can lead to particular client groups being denied specific services (for example, Judge, 1978; Klein et al., 1996) and, within housing research, there are studies which explore the allocation of social or municipal housing to different social or ethnic groups (Henderson and Karn, 1984; Clapham and Kintrea, 1986; Lidstone, 1994; Saugeres, 1999). (See also Wright, 2003, on how employment counselling can vary for different client groups.) There is an emerging interest in the neighbourhood dimensions of rationing, however. This is perhaps best exemplified by the increasing scrutiny of the spatial distribution of key health services, such as analysis of how the quality of primary health care might vary between deprived and better-off neighbourhoods (McKay et al., 2005; Wheeler et al., 2005; Mercer et al., 2007; Mercer and Watt, 2007). By exploring whether and how environmental services might be rationed with respect to poor neighbourhoods in the UK, this paper aims to contribute new understanding of the processes at play within the contemporary provision of public services in relation to neighbourhood differences. Indeed, environmental services—or those services such as street cleansing and refuse collection

POOR NEIGHBOURHOODS/SERVICES

which are concerned with the maintenance and quality of the local environment—are a set of public services provided and experienced very much at the neighbourhood level. Crucially, there is substantial evidence that poor neighbourhoods in the UK tend to have lower levels of environmental cleanliness than better-off neighbourhoods (Bramley, 1997; Burningham and Thrush, 2001; Lupton and Power, 2004; ODPM, 2004; Hastings et al., 2005). Understanding the role which service provision may play in this regard is clearly important, particularly since UK policy and practice provide for a full programme of environmental services to be deployed on a universal basis to all urban neighbourhoods. Further, policy and practice are also interested in cleanliness outcomes: the Environmental Protection Act 1990 requires local authorities to reach certain thresholds of cleanliness in all residential neighbourhoods and, as the result of policy initiatives devised under the New Labour administrations, enhanced services can be provided in the poorest neighbourhoods to help achieve this (SEU, 2000; Scottish Executive, 2002). Given this policy context, the existence of a gap in cleanliness between poor and better-off neighbourhoods may not simply be a result of rationing within local environmental service provision. It could reflect, for example, different levels of environmental care between the residents of different neighbourhood contexts. This possibility is not explored in depth in this paper, as a separate paper (Hastings, 2009) explores such behavioural issues within the rubric of the ‘neighbourhood effects’ literature. The policy context does, however, suggest the need for an in-depth and subtle analysis of the processes at play within services—and this is the aim of this paper. The first part of the paper reviews the literature on ‘rationing’ within public services, particularly within the urban studies field. The review develops an analytical framework for the paper by proposing three distinctive

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forms of rationing for the environmental service sphere. The second part describes the research approach and outlines how this paper relates to a wider study (Hastings et al., 2005). The third and most substantial part of the paper explores the evidence of this study on the three forms of rationing proposed. The fourth and final part of the paper reflects on evidence that the different forms of rationing appear to amplify each other, allowing the paper to conclude that rationing processes may be significant for understanding differences in environmental cleanliness between deprived and nondeprived neighbourhoods in the UK.

Rationing and Urban Services: Literature Review and Analytical Framework The main aim of this review is to propose a framework to analyse potential rationing processes within neighbourhood environmental service provision in the UK context. Although there is much of relevance within the extant literature, there is no previous research to draw upon in the specific arena of environmental services. And, as was suggested earlier, the provision of this service at the time of the research has some specific features which may mean that pre-existing conceptualisations of rationing may require to be adapted in order to understand fully the processes at play. The framework proposed is therefore the result of an iterative dialogue between the literature as it stands and new analysis conducted in the field. To aid legibility, it is presented at the outset of the discussion, although this should not lead to the assumption that the paper tests a set of a priori hypotheses. Thus, Table 1 proposes and defines three forms of rationing within environmental service provision. What follows are three short reviews of literature relevant to each of the concepts in this table. The reviews are designed to link what is

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Table 1. ‘Rationing’ and environmental services: three concepts Institutional rationing

An unintentional, systemic bias against fully addressing the needs of deprived neighbourhoods in service planning and resource allocation

Reactive rationing

The regular and ad hoc variation of workers’ and managers’ practices and standards of work between deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods

Political rationing

Where levels of service and service standards are sensitive to variations in the political resources and political pressures of neighbourhoods

known about rationing in service provision generally to contemporary UK environmental service provision, as well as to identify issues for research. Institutional Rationing: The Literature

The concept of institutional rationing brings to the fore the idea that institutions may collectively fail to provide services appropriately and properly for disadvantaged groups in society. The resonance with institutional racism1 is deliberate: the concept suggests that neighbourhood service providers can inadvertently discriminate against deprived neighbourhoods through a set of systemic, pervasive and habitual policies and practices. Institutional rationing brings together two themes within the literature on rationing: research which analyses resource allocation and research on institutional rules and procedures. These themes tend to be dealt with separately in the literature, but it is useful to bring them together in this context. The importance of examining resource allocation in order to identify “financial rationing” was first noted by Judge (1975, p. 5) and since then there has been substantial research within urban studies on the spatial distribution of public resources (Lineberry, 1977; Rich, 1979; Pinch, 1985; Boyne and Powell, 1991; Powell and Boyne, 2001; Bramley and Evans, 2000; Bramley and Evans, 2002; Wheeler et al., 2005). For Judge, financial rationing encompasses macrolevel, governmental decision-making about the programmatic and spatial priorities for public expenditure as well as the more

micro-level, institutional processes which determine “who is to get what within the budgetary limits they (within the institution) have been set” (Klein et al., 1990, p. 9). The notion of institutional rationing as defined here focuses only on the localised, ‘within institution’ allocation processes rather than on the macro-level spending programmes. Such a focus is more usual in the US rather than the UK literature. Thus, the US ‘urban services distribution literature’ of the 1970s and 1980s analysed whether institutional biases within city hall meant that poor, Black neighbourhoods failed to receive an equal share of services. Interestingly, the first wave of such studies suggested that such biases were not prevalent: as Lineberry (1977) argued, where inequalities were detected, they were “unpatterned” in relation to race and class (Lineberry, 1977, p. 142). However, later work within this rubric challenged the fact that the early studies focused on the equity or otherwise of service inputs without reference to the uneven distribution of need at the neighbourhood level (Hero, 1986; Meier et al., 1991). In contrast, the UK literature has been underpinned from the outset by a focus on how resource inputs relate to spatial variations in need, albeit examining patterns of public spending at the regional and local authority spatial scale rather than analysing how—for example—individual local authorities determine the share of resources which specific neighbourhoods or client groups are to receive (for example, Pinch, 1985; Boyne and Powell, 1991; Wheeler et al., 2005). An exception is the work of


Bramley and Evans (2000, 2002) which does penetrate to neighbourhood-level analyses of needs and expenditures, but again the focus of this work is on determining overall relative flows of resources rather than on intra-institutional decision-making processes. As will be seen shortly, the allocation of resources relative to need is critical to the concept of institutional rationing. However, before turning to this, we need to discuss a second relevant theme in the literature. In addition to its financial aspects, Judge noted a second dimension to rationing which he called “service rationing”. He used the notion of service rationing to describe the fact that access to social services was governed by both explicit and implicit rules and procedures which worked to include some individuals and groups whilst excluding others (Judge, 1978, p. 6). Again, there is a useful vein of work which explores how the rules and procedures embedded within institutions can result in systems and practices which restrict access to services. Housing studies is a particularly rich example, where a range of papers have shown how institutional rules can exclude racial or other disadvantaged groups from the best-quality publicly subsidised housing (for example, Henderson and Karn, 1984; Clapham and Kintrea, 1986; Lidstone, 1994). However, given the fact that UK environmental provision is provided on a universal, unrestricted basis, the relevance of the concept is not immediately apparent. Indeed, to understand the salience of service rationing in this context, it is necessary to recall two elements of the discussion thus far: first, the specific features of UK environmental service provision at the time of the research; and, secondly, the question of the relationship of resource allocation to need. Thus, as was noted in the introduction, UK policy and practice allow for environmental services to be provided in an enhanced form at the neighbourhood level. This is in order to try to achieve required outcome

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thresholds despite spatial variations in need. Yet—as has also been noted—deprived neighbourhoods tend to be dirtier than betteroff neighbourhoods. In such a context, the question for research must be whether deprived neighbourhoods do in fact receive these enhanced service levels, rather than simply the basic universal service. Turning to the second issue—the relationship between resources and need—again, the needs-based orientation of UK research has already been highlighted. However, whilst the early research appeared content to note a generally positive association between expenditure and need (for example, Pinch, 1985; Boyne and Powell, 1991), recent studies have sought to analyse a more challenging issue: the extent to which resource allocation is proportionate to need (Bramley and Evans, 2000, 2002; Wheeler et al., 2005; Hastings, 2007). This leads to a further refinement of the research question: do deprived neighbourhoods receive enhanced services and are levels of enhancement commensurate with their levels of need for that service? Indeed, the issue of proportionality is central to the notion of institutional rationing proposed in this paper: institutional rationing can be said to occur where there is a systemic bias against fully addressing the needs of deprived neighbourhoods. The extent to which institutional rationing is apparent in cases of neighbourhood environmental service provision is explored in the analytical part of the paper. First, the literature relevant to the other two proposed dimensions of rationing requires to be outlined. Reactive Rationing: The Literature

Interestingly Judge’s notion of service rationing focused solely on the impact of the formal rules within service provision. However, much of the research on rationing has identified the importance of the actual practices of the staff as they implement the rules in order to deliver services. These more

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micro-level practices—both those which are routinised and those which are more occasional—are the focus of ‘reactive rationing’ (see Table 2).2 Crucially, the notion brings to the fore how practices and attitudes may vary between staff operating in deprived or better-off neighbourhoods. It draws strongly on Lipsky’s (1980) classic analysis of the use of discretion by ‘street-level bureaucrats’, as well as on writing about rationing practices in a range of public services (for example, Henderson and Karn, 1984; Clapham and Kintrea, 1986; Gillborn and Youdell, 2000; Wright, 2003.) Lipsky argues (1980, p. 142) that front-line workers effectively ration services through a set of processes which include both the routinised categorisation of clients as well as the more occasional and ad hoc decisions they make as they perform their role. A particular emphasis in Lipsky’s work is that these processes are part of the ‘coping strategies’ which workers develop in order to meet the challenges of their jobs: for example, situations caused by inadequate resources or where demand for the service outstrips supply (p. 22). In terms of which groups are advantaged and which groups disadvantaged by such decisions, Lipsky argues that the content of the biases will “reflect the prevailing biases of society”. This is a crucial point, and a number of writers identify the prevailing bias as one in which there is a division between ‘respectable’ clients who deserve good service and less respectable clients for whom a more limited claim on services is their just dessert (for example, Baumgarter, 1992; Henderson and Karn, 1984; Clapham and Kintrea, 1986; Meier et al., 1991). Indeed, Henderson and Karn (1984) argue that there is a widespread, legitimated belief that ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ are important categories in the distribution of scarce resources. The literature also suggests that the rationing behaviours of street-level bureaucrats are conditioned not just by societal biases,

but by the institutional structure and system within which they operate (Lipsky, 1980; Henderson and Karn, 1984; Gillborn and Youdell, 2000.) For instance, Gillborn and Youdell (2000) show how imperatives within the UK education system affect the behaviours of school teachers. Thus the published school ‘league tables’—which formalise competition between schools to maximise the proportion of their pupils attaining certain achievement thresholds—can lead to a system of “educational triage” (p. 198) in which intensive teaching interventions are reserved for those pupils identified as capable of meeting such thresholds, directly at the expense of pupils deemed incapable of doing so (Gilborn and Youdell, 2000, pp. 197–200). The practice of triaging school pupils is strongly suggestive of the notion of reactive rationing proposed in Table 1. However, the most interesting aspect of Gilborn and Youdell’s study is that it captures the interplay between institutional imperatives, rationing behaviours at the point of service delivery and societal biases. Thus, the authors show how race, gender and class biases appear systematically to determine the groups of pupils excluded from intensive interventions (pp. 200–205; see also Henderson and Karn, 1984). In effect, they argue for a clear order of causation: institutional imperatives provoke general rationing behaviours amongst service deliverers and then the specific nature of the rationing which occurs will tend to mirror dominant biases in society. The complexity of the processes captured in the notion of reactive rationing should be apparent. Indeed, there are three distinct ways in which rationing practices can be said to be ‘reactive’. First, rationing behaviour can be a reaction to a challenging workload. Secondly, the way in which service providers apply their discretion may reflect societal distinctions between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’. And, thirdly, the operationallevel behaviours and decision-making of staff


may be a response to systemic biases within their parent institutions. Political Rationing: The Literature

The notion of political rationing identified in Table 1 denotes a situation where the level and quality of services are sensitive to variations in the political resources and political pressures of neighbourhoods. As a concept, political rationing connects socio-spatial inequalities to variations in collective and political efficacy and draws attention to the potential impact of this variation on public service provision. It has of course long been understood that middle- and higher-income groups tend to have levels of political resources which can allow them to appropriate public services for their own ends. As Goodin and Le Grand (1987) argue, the ‘non-poor’ are proficient in ‘infiltrating’ and ‘defending’ the parts of the welfare state which are most beneficial to them. In Social Justice and the City, David Harvey argues for a spatial dimension to this process, such that better-off groups are able to organise themselves to exploit the “hidden mechanisms of redistribution” in the city (Harvey, 1973, p. 73) in the competitive struggle for the cities’ goods … the slum is an area where the population … lacks control over the channels through which such resources are distributed and maintained (Sherrard, 1968, p. 10; quoted in Harvey, 1973, p. 79).

There is not, however, an extensive and detailed literature on the mechanisms by which more-affluent neighbourhoods achieve their relative political power or on the effects of this. Arguably, however, three themes can be drawn out from that which there is. First, and most substantially, there is evidence of the proficiency of better-off neighbourhoods in terms of organising collectively to defend their neighbourhood against a threat (for example, to stop a local school being closed)

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or, alternatively, to agitate for improved services (Harvey, 1973; McCormick and Philo, 1995; Jones, 1995; Sampson et al., 1999). Secondly, there is a (mostly) US literature which has examined patterns of complaining in relation to public services (for example, Verba and Nie, 1972; Jones et al., 1977; Hirlinger, 1992) which suggests that an interaction between (high) socioeconomic status, a perceived need or demand and strong political ties predicts complaining behaviour (see Hirlinger, 1992, p. 560). Related to this, Lipsky (1980) highlights how the poor are often fearful about complaining, aware that they risk being labelled as difficult and concerned about antagonising the street-level bureaucrats upon whom they depend—a point confirmed more recently in Dean and Hastings, 2000. Thirdly and finally, sociospatial variations in residents’ expectations of the quality of public services are also identified in the literature: there is evidence that higher-income neighbourhoods will tend to be more critical of service quality than residents of other kinds of neighbourhood (Duffy, 2000; Carmona and de Magalhaes, 2007; Hastings et al., 2005). This brief overview therefore identifies a set of micro-level processes which may allow better-off neighbourhoods to influence service provision. It should be emphasised that there is scant evidence on the response of service providers to the claims of better-off neighbourhoods. The next part of the paper explains the research design adopted to explore whether and in what ways political rationing can be detected in neighbourhood environmental service provision, as well detailing how the research was conceived to investigate the institutional and reactive dimensions to rationing proposed in this review.

Research Approach This paper is based on a study3 which sought to explain why deprived neighbourhoods

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in the UK tend to have lower-quality environmental amenity and cleanliness than better-off neighbourhoods. It is the second in a series of three papers which together explore a range of issues which appear to contribute to this tendency. The first— Hastings (2007)—presented detailed analysis which suggested that services do not fully recognise the nature and level of need in deprived neighbourhoods, whilst the third— Hastings (2009)—investigates the effects of concentrated deprivation on the attitudes and behaviours of residents as well as of neighbourhood-based staff. This paper focuses on the various roles which the organisation and delivery of service provision may play in contributing to this problem, hence the focus on rationing. The study involved detailed case studies of 12 neighbourhoods, three in each of four local authorities. Crucially for the service focus of this paper, the case study local authorities were selected to represent each of four different service approaches to addressing the needs of deprived neighbourhoods. These distinctive approaches were identified via telephone interviews with senior managers of environmental service departments in 49 local authorities (an approximate 10 per cent sample of all relevant4 local authorities across the UK). Two of the approaches identified were distinctive ways of providing enhanced services, and two variations on providing standardised services. Across the 49, 25 offered enhanced services, and 24 offered standard services, with a one-third/two-thirds split in relation to the different sub-approaches (see Hastings et al., 2005, pp. 36–37, for detailed discussion of these approaches to service provision). The four authorities selected for the detailed work reported here were all urban authorities with significant levels of deprivation, as the survey suggested that the gap in cleanliness was most apparent in such contexts. Other factors such as the location and

type of authority, together with demographic characteristics such as ethnic mix guided the final selection, as did the extent to which the authority had fully developed their approach. Within each authority, the trio of neighbourhoods consisted of two ‘deprived’ and one ‘better-off ’ neighbourhood in socioeconomic terms. Deprived neighbourhoods were defined as those with characteristics that placed them as amongst the fifth most deprived nationally, with better-off neighbourhoods defined by being above this threshold—measured using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD 2004) and Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD 2004). Each trio was also selected to capture other contextual differences such as ‘traditional’ and ‘modernist’ built forms or whether major regeneration was on-going. The analysis of service rationing involved a number of elements. First, an in-depth analysis of strategic policy, service planning and resource allocation with respect to environmental service provision in residential neighbourhoods was conducted. This involved an examination of strategy and budgetary documents as well as detailed interviews with senior managers and elected members concerned with environmental service provision in each of the four authorities. Additional interviews with observers from other local authority departments and with senior officials from other relevant public organisations—such as housing and police organisations—provided an ‘outside’ perspective on the rationale and impacts of each authority’s policy framework. Secondly, detailed research in each of the three neighbourhoods within each authority was conducted. This involved interviews with managers and officer-level staff from environmental and other departments such as housing organisations and the police, as well as with community leaders and focus groups with front-line environmental operatives and


local residents.5 This aspect of the research provided important evidence on levels of need within neighbourhoods, as well as on perceptions of how well needs were being met. In total, there were 196 informants for the research reflecting different stakeholders as well as perspectives. In addition, the study involved members of the research team observing and grading environmental quality in each of the three case study neighbourhoods using a simplified version of the criteria devised for the Local Environmental Quality Survey for England (see ENCAMS, 2006, p. 37, for further details). This survey assesses the presence of litter, graffiti, rubbish and so on, grading each site A–D, where A is ‘good’, B ‘satisfactory’, C ‘unsatisfactory’ and D ‘poor’. Under the terms of the Environmental Protection Act (1990), authorities are expected to ensure that all residential streets meet the B threshold of acceptable cleanliness and to take remedial action within a set timeframe for those which fall below it. Finally, it should be noted that the research design did not include covert observational techniques designed to ‘catch’ research participants in the act of discriminatory practices. Rather, it relied upon triangulating the evidence drawn from a range of stakeholder perspectives as well as probing interviews in which informants were challenged to explain discrepancies in environmental amenity between neighbourhoods. It might be expected therefore that the evidence provided in the next section on the three dimensions of rationing may well understate the prevalence of some aspects of these processes within the case study neighbourhoods.

Evidence on Rationing Environmental Services within Deprived Neighbourhoods This part of the paper considers the evidence of the research on each of the three rationing mechanisms proposed in Table 1.

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Institutional Rationing: Evidence on Environmental Service Provision

It was argued in the literature review which proposed the notion of institutional rationing that analysis of the phenomenon should focus on two things: whether deprived neighbourhoods receive enhanced environmental service levels and, crucially, whether the level of service provision is proportionate with their level of need for these services. At one level, these questions can be answered quite simply from the evidence of the study. Thus, four out of the eight deprived neighbourhoods enjoyed enhancements to mainstream services, including more frequent street sweeping and, in two cases, additional collections of bulky refuse items. And, if we take cleanliness outcomes as a measure of whether services are being provided according to need, six of these eight fell below acceptable cleanliness thresholds. However, in order to assess the challenging question of proportionality, a more sophisticated account of the relationships between need, cleanliness and service levels is required. To do this, it is necessary to establish the nature and level of need for environmental service provision specifically and then to examine how these relate to outcomes and service levels. The earlier paper (Hastings, 2007) upon which this one builds explored these questions in some depth and its key findings are summarised in Table 2 and in the accompanying discussion. Thus, it was noted in Hastings (2007) that staff working within environmental service departments identified a range of neighbourhood features which they said were associated with need for environmental service. Some features related to socioeconomic need, such as aspects of the population including its demographic profile, levels of economic inactivity, population density or turnover. Others related to the physical characteristics of neighbourhoods, such as on-street parking, denser built forms or modernist

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Table 2. Neighbourhood cleanliness and service enhancements by ‘environmental disadvantage’ ranking

Case study neighbourhood C2 A1 D2 D1 C1 A2 C3 B1 B2 D3 A3 B3

Level of environmental disadvantage (rank within case studies) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Cleanliness above acceptable threshold?

Enhanced services (funded from core budgets)

Enhanced services (funded from special resources)

No No No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No No No No No

No Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No

Notes: This table is a reorganised and simplified version of Hastings (2007; Table 7). To aid comparability, this table uses the same denotation for local authorities and neighbourhoods within them as the original table (local authorities are distinguished A–D and neighbourhoods 1–3 within each authority). Neighbourhoods selected as ‘less deprived’ case studies on the index of multiple deprivation/Scottish index of multiple deprivation (IMD/SIMD) are in bold italics. In this table, case studies are put in order of their relative ‘environmental disdvantage’, with 1 being the most disadvantaged and 12 the least. The column on cleanliness thresholds refers to where the research team judged that the neighbourhood would generally have met the acceptable cleanliness threshold as set out in the Environmental Protection Act, 1990. The columns on enhanced services should be self-explanatory.

streetscape design. Staff suggested that such features produce more challenging contexts for the delivery of environmental services (Hastings, 2007, pp. 901–907). Sixteen separate neighbourhood characteristics were identified in the discussions and, in the paper, these were quantified for the 12 case study neighbourhoods, producing a bespoke index of ‘environmental disadvantage’ (Hastings, 2007, Table 6). The paper also showed how focusing specifically on environmental disadvantage, rather than the more generic notion of ‘multiple deprivation’ as captured in the standard index of multiple deprivation, led to a reassessment of the relative needs of the 12 case study neighbourhoods (Hastings, 2007, Table 6). The value of the bespoke index for exploring potential associations

between cleanliness outcomes and neighbourhood context should be apparent. Table 2 shows that 7 of the 12 neighbourhoods fell below the threshold of acceptable cleanliness. Crucially, it shows that these were also the seven most needy neighbourhoods when measured on the environmental disadvantage index: unsatisfactory cleanliness appears to be associated with challenging neighbourhood characteristics therefore. Table 2 also identifies which neighbourhoods received enhanced services—either funded from core local authority budgets or funded from non-mainstream resources such as regeneration initiatives or housing association expenditures. As the table shows, five neighbourhoods received core-funded enhanced services, all of them among the


seven most environmentally disadvantaged cases and with cleanliness below the acceptable level. Four neighbourhoods received non-core-funded enhanced services, three of which had unsatisfactory cleanliness. The evidence of the table is therefore that service enhancements do tend to be deployed in neighbourhoods which are environmentally disadvantaged, but it also suggests that the level of enhancement may be insufficient to compensate fully for need. Further analysis in relation to neighbourhood B1 is interesting, however. B1 is the only neighbourhood in receipt of any form of enhanced services which actually meets the required cleanliness threshold. As Table 2 shows, on the ‘environmental difficulty’ index the neighbourhood appears relatively advantaged. When judged on IMD2004 however, B1 is severely multiply deprived (it is amongst the 4 per cent most deprived nationally). Yet whilst it is disadvantaged in socioeconomic terms, it has only two of the nine physical characteristics identified by service providers as associated with a physically difficult context for service provision (Hastings, 2007, Table 5), explaining why it does not score highly on the environmental disadvantage index. In this case, it appears that service provision is sufficient to compensate for need. Notably, however, the neighbourhood’s enhanced services are not funded from core local authority budgets, but from the revenues of the housing association which owns the housing stock—essentially rental income from neighbourhood residents. Core, local-authority-funded services are therefore not being provided proportionate to need: compensation is achieved by the housing provider. A second strand of analysis also supports the idea that institutional rationing is a feature of service provision in this arena. A systemic bias was detected in the way in which environmental service providers explained the causes of neighbourhood environmental

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problems: there was a decided preference for cultural over structural explanations. Thus, when research participants were asked to explain why there was a gap in levels of cleanliness between deprived and less deprived neighbourhoods, the first, most readily articulated accounts blamed the behaviour of residents. It was suggested routinely that there were cultures within poor neighbourhoods which lead to a tolerance of environmental problems and, indeed, to the propensity to cause them directly. One manager argued, for example, that the improper disposal of refuse and litter was “a social thing, people just do it. It’s a culture thing: its not being educated out of them”. Another suggested that “the people there are just dirty, that’s all there is to it”. Front-line operatives often used colourful language to refer to the residents of environmentally problematic neighbourhoods: “scum”, “lazy people” or, as one street-sweeper claimed: “there are certain people who are just scruffy bastards”. However, as noted earlier, research participants did identify the role of more structural factors in creating environmental challenges: that is, the range of socioeconomic and physical structural characteristics included in the environmental disadvantage index. Crucially, however, these features tended to be identified by interviewees only after they had voiced cultural, behavioural explanations and, in many cases, after being probed to consider alternatives by the interviewer. In fact, most research participants only identified one or two of the 16 neighbourhood characteristics included in the index of environmental disadvantage. The index is, in fact, an aggregate of the various, fragmented views of research informants. Importantly, the full version was not articulated by any of the research participants. The key issue is that two quite different sets of explanations are offered by environmental service providers for the propensity of deprived neighbourhoods to have more environmental problems than their better-off

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counterparts. One—the cultural discourse— is the preferred, possibly habitual, discourse which is capable of being fully articulated by a range of staff, whilst a second, structural discourse is also present, but articulated only occasionally, reluctantly and in fragments. However, it is possible to construct a cogent structural argument from these fragments which suggests that the socioeconomic and physical attributes of poor neighbourhoods place them at risk of environmental problems. In fact, a version of this structural argument was in play in one of the local authority case studies: where the standard index of multiple deprivation was being used to determine where service enhancements should be focused. What is interesting though is that whilst such an argument is available within environmental service departments (whether in fragments or as part of strategic policy), it is not foregrounded by the actual individuals involved in providing the services. On this basis, it can be argued therefore that there is an institutional bias within environmental service departments, such that it is habitual to view neighbourhood environmental problems as having cultural, behavioural causes as well as to ‘forget’ the salience of a quite extensive set of structural factors. Arguably, this bias may help to explain why service enhancements are not provided sufficient to compensate for levels of need. Indeed, the evidence on reactive rationing which follows supports this argument. Reactive Rationing: Evidence on Environmental Service Provision

The literature review suggested that three issues should be examined in relation to reactive rationing: how working practices vary between deprived and better-off neighbourhoods as workers struggle to cope with challenging workloads; secondly, the extent to which rationing decisions are conditioned by notions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ neighbourhoods; and, thirdly, how operational practices are related to institutional

biases. Discussion of this third issue is reserved for the concluding part of the paper which focuses on the interplay between different dimensions of rationing. There was substantial evidence that the delivery of environmental services can be significantly more difficult in some deprived neighbourhoods than in more affluent areas. Thus the need to find ways of ‘coping’ with challenging working conditions was very apparent from interview and focus group discussions. Two themes dominated the testimony of the front-line workers operating in deprived neighbourhoods: first, a sense of being overwhelmed by the extent of environmental problems and by the consequent workload; and, secondly, feelings of powerlessness and lack of control. It was clear that refuse collectors and street-sweepers felt crushed by the volume of litter and refuse they faced. Refuse collectors argued that they had literally heavier workloads—they claimed the bins they had to empty were heavier in deprived neighbourhoods than elsewhere. Their work was made more challenging by a mismatch between the capacity of refuse containers and the volume of refuse, resulting in overflows. Further, heavier bins were more likely to spill during the collection process, again adding to workloads. However, the neighbourhood deprivation effect on workload appeared to be felt most acutely by streetsweepers. Some claimed that it was impossible to clean some neighbourhoods to an acceptable standard, for example: “there’s that much rubbish we just tend to walk past it”. Another described how his strategy was “don’t look back!” for fear that areas which he had just cleaned were freshly littered. The relentlessness with which litter appeared meant that it was difficult to maintain cleanliness levels once they had been achieved You are sweeping the streets and the next day you are sweeping it again, it’s basically dirty all over again. There’s no let-up and there’s no


satisfaction in it (street-cleansing operative, deprived neighbourhood).

Some research participants were in a position to compare workloads in both deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods. It was clear that, whilst they felt able to perform their work effectively in better-off neighbourhoods (and indeed took pride and pleasure in their work there), this was not a feature of working in a deprived neighbourhood. Linked to their sense of being overwhelmed by the workload in deprived neighbourhoods, environmental operatives clearly felt they exerted little control over the quality of the neighbourhood environment. Common to their testimony was the idea that they did not have the capacity to make a difference to environmental conditions in the most problematic of neighbourhoods: “[it] will stay a dump no matter what we do” or “[picking up the litter] wouldn’t make a difference”. Crucially, however, despite this feeling of powerlessness against the onslaught of rubbish, the operatives did develop ‘coping strategies’ which allowed them to gain at least some sense of power. Front-line environmental workers such as street-sweepers and refuse collectors do not fulfil Lipsky’s criteria for ‘street-level bureaucrats’ in the sense that they are neither professionals nor semiprofessionals and do not appear to have substantial degrees of autonomy in how they undertake their jobs. Nonetheless, it was clear that these workers have a sufficient level of discretion to allow them to develop ways of coping with the challenges of their jobs. Thus there was evidence that environmental operatives would work to different standards according to the neighbourhood context. It was apparent that, in deprived neighbourhoods, operatives would cut corners, ignore litter or, as one argued, do “just the bare minimum”. A number of workers were able to contrast the minimum standards

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they worked to in deprived areas with the situation in better-off neighbourhoods where staff admitted to removing litter from private gardens You don’t mind doing that bit more in (non-deprived neighbourhood) because people take more care of it and their gardens (street sweeper, deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods).

There was apparent tacit approval for such practices amongst local managers and supervisors, with one letting slip that an area which had been subject to a major regeneration investment now required more diligent servicing Before the regeneration, it used to be that maybe we could get away with things a bit. There’s no chance now.

There was also evidence that overflowing domestic refuse, as well as the spills generated during the collection process, were not always dealt with effectively in deprived areas. This was according to participants in resident focus groups and according to operatives themselves: individuals would claim that, whilst they were diligent in clearing up spills and overflows, they knew colleagues who were not. The indirect way in which refuse collectors admitted to sub-standard and discriminatory working practices is a reminder that researching this area is a difficult task, particularly when the main source of evidence is the workers themselves. Again, the assumption that there will be an element of under-reporting should be emphasised. However, interviewees from other agencies, especially housing officials, suggested that different service standards were evident in different neighbourhood contexts. In addition to understanding service rationing as a reaction to challenging working conditions, the extent to which it is conditioned

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by notions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ clients and neighbourhoods requires to be examined. Again, this is a difficult area to research, but evidence that such categories were important was apparent in the language of front-line workers noted earlier (“scum”, “lazy people”, “scruffy bastards”). Importantly, there was also evidence that service levels and standards could also vary according to how operatives judged the merits of a neighbourhood. There were a number of examples from the research participants of how they might deliberately vary their effort in order to reward ‘good’ behaviour. This was most apparent in neighbourhoods where the environment appeared to be becoming less problematic, usually as the result of enhanced service levels or of a regeneration investment. In such situations, individual operatives had less overwhelming workloads and felt better able to provide an effective standard of service. In such situations, workers admitted that they were sometimes willing “to do a bit extra”—for example, helping residents clear up hedge clippings from the street or removing refuse from a location not part of their remit it’s maybe not your responsibility you know, but I do it just to keep a lid on things (street sweeper, deprived neighbourhood).

And, in contrast to the pathological labels attached by workers to residents of problematic neighbourhoods, there was a tendency to normalise residents of improving neighbourhoods who were seen as “grafters” or “ordinary working-class people”—that is, people very much like the operatives, with often challenging lives, doing their best to get by. The only direct evidence that service standards would be reduced in response to an ‘undeserving’ categorisation was offered in discussions of the fact that, in some problematic neighbourhoods, there could be intimidation and even violence towards workers. In situations where there were

threats to staff safety, local managers and supervisors had the discretion necessary to reorganise working practices and reduce service standards There are some bits where we know we don’t do a good job. It’s just in and out as quickly as possible (local manager, Environmental Services Department).

However, individual workers also had ways of dealing with less serious forms of abuse. For instance, it appeared common for refuse collectors to be shouted at by residents awakened by the clatter made as bins were emptied. In one focus group, refuse collectors revealed how in this circumstance they would leave bins unemptied and refuse uncollected. As one described What we usually do when they start shoutin’, sometimes we just turn about an’ [say] ‘right … leave that one, move on to the next one’ to try and teach them (refuse collector, deprived and undeprived neighbourhoods).

In this example, the operative’s reaction to being shouted at could be construed both as discrimination against clients he believed are ‘undeserving’ of a good-quality service and as a less controversial form of coping with an undoubtedly unpleasant situation. However, as he admitted, he and his colleagues do not gain by omitting to empty some bins: “we’re losin’ out cos it’s gonna be doublin’ up the next time we go back in”. Such a reaction is therefore perhaps less a coping mechanism and more a way to distinguish between clients who deserve and who fail to deserve a proper service. Clearly, it is not straightforward to research how the working practices of individuals are affected by the circumstances under which they work. We can assume some underreporting of the extent to which standards are dropped and practices adjusted in problematic neighbourhoods, not least because research participants are likely to be wary


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about disclosing information which could compromise them. However, the evidence provided here suggests that reactive rationing can and does occur: service levels and standards appear to be reduced in the most problematic neighbourhoods, certainly relative to less problematic, improving neighbourhoods and, as the discussion following on political rationing suggests, relative to more affluent neighbourhoods.

of affluent neighbourhoods could be quick to escalate their complaint by referring it to more senior managers or to local politicians, or alternatively would use the threat of doing so in order to secure what they believed to be appropriate action

Political Rationing: Evidence on Environmental Service Provision

There appeared to be a number of ways in which the variation in propensity to complain affected neighbourhood service provision. At an individual level, it was clear that operatives were keenly aware that residents of affluent neighbourhoods were more likely to complain about sub-standard work than residents of other kinds of neighbourhoods. Whilst some denied that this awareness meant they worked more diligently, there was also the claim that “others might”, as well as direct admission from some that, yes, they would work harder to minimise complaints. Some of the operatives suggested that they found it stressful to work in the most affluent neighbourhoods, partly because they were fearful of complaints and partly because in these areas they could be subject to—sometimes arrogant—requests from residents to undertake tasks beyond their remit. One street-sweeper, for instance, told how he was hailed as “laddie” and asked to sweep leaves from (private) driveways. He told how he acquiesced to such requests only for fear that, if he refused, the resident would make a complaint about his legitimate work. Beyond these individualised responses, there was also evidence that services were sometimes organised in ways which would minimise complaints from affluent areas. In two of the local authority case studies, there was discussion of the effects on services more generally of sudden additional demands (such as major sporting events) or of periodic staff shortages. These would necessitate reduced

The definition of political rationing offered in Table 1, together with the discussion of the literature identified in support of the concept, foregrounds the role of service users in ‘coproducing’6 the rationing process alongside service providers: it is both the variation in the political capacities of residents and the response of service providers to this variation which produces political rationing. In what follows, the case study evidence is discussed on the variations between deprived and better-off neighbourhoods in terms of their propensity to complain, in relation to their expectations of service quality and also with respect to the strength of their collective organisation. Crucially, the discussion aims to identify the response of service providers to this variation. The most substantial evidence in support of political rationing related to the propensity to complain and the effectiveness of complaining about service quality. There was consensus among service providers, both operatives and managers, that residents of more affluent neighbourhoods tended to complain about the quality of environmental services more often than residents of deprived neighbourhoods. They also suggested that they would complain about more minor problems than residents of poorer neighbourhoods and that they would sustain their complaints until a problem was resolved. Crucially, service providers also suggested that residents

Everyone in [affluent] neighbourhood seems to know their MP or play golf with the councillor (street-sweeper, deprived and nondeprived neighbourhoods).

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services in some neighbourhoods. Some service providers suggested that reductions would tend to happen in neighbourhoods where residents were disinclined to complain, a view supported by the testimony of housing officials and other ‘outsider’ interviewees. However, more senior environmental service managers and elected members tended to deny strongly that this would occur. A further and final way in which service provision appeared responsive to complaints related to the fact that residents of affluent neighbourhoods appeared better able than residents of more disadvantaged neighbourhoods to access local politicians and command their attention and effort. There was evidence from a number of the case studies of how influential elected councillors were in terms of getting immediate problems addressed. A locally based manager told how he spent a substantial part of his time organising staff to ‘firefight’ problems brought to his attention primarily by councillors and how this was at the expense of more strategic management: “The councillor wields the big stick and we have to jump”. Front-line operatives felt this acutely Everybody jumps. They’ll tell you to do streets y’ve already done. If you get 10 complaints and one’s a councillor, that one gets done first (street-sweeper, deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods).

Whilst there was evidence in the case studies of individuals using their political skills and connections to agitate for improved services, there was little evidence from either deprived or better-off neighbourhoods of collective activity with regard to environmental service provision more specifically. However, residents of the more affluent neighbourhoods did discuss their capacities for collective action in more general terms. As one explained, she and her neighbours were more likely “to know the system”: that is, more able to contact officials or elected members, or to organise

public meetings and conduct petitions—for example: “We know how to write a letter which helps; we know how to get things done”. Indeed, there were examples of successful collective action not specifically in relation to environmental services across the betteroff neighbourhoods. In one, a local group had successfully lobbied to have a short cut from their neighbourhood to surrounding countryside fenced off and had also overturned a decision to build a children’s football pitch on nearby land (even once excavation had begun!). In another neighbourhood, residents had campaigned to have a road between their area and an adjacent deprived neighbourhood blocked off, to prevent—as they argued—their neighbourhood being used as a ‘race track’. Thus it was clear that the capacity for collective action was present in at least some of the better-off neighbourhoods and that it might have emerged in relation to environmental services but for the success of individual-level action. The lack of community-level organisation around environmental service provision in the more disadvantaged neighbourhoods cannot, however, be accounted for by the success of individual crusades. Two of the deprived neighbourhoods appeared particularly well organised on other local issues, notably with regard to housing and physical improvements. However, although the cleanliness of both neighbourhoods fell below the ‘satisfactory’ threshold, it was clear from the focus groups and interviews that residents felt powerless to challenge this on either an individual or a collective basis. Indeed, in one case, a group interview with staff employed in a community-managed project suggested that even they were unable to see how change could be effected We don’t know why it’s happening [i.e. that the neighbourhood is so dirty]. I can’t really explain it. And as for what we do about it, God only knows (housing manager, deprived neighbourhood).


The final theme identified in the literature to support the notion of political rationing was that there can be variations in expectations of service quality between deprived and nondeprived neighbourhoods. Such differences emerged clearly in the case studies. Thus, service providers—including elected members, senior and local managers and frontline operatives—claimed that residents in better-off neighbourhoods insisted on increasingly high standards of work (see also Carmona and de Magalhaes, 2007). Indeed, this propensity was evident in the focus groups with such residents, as was the contrast between their expectations and those articulated by resident groups in the most problematic neighbourhoods. Thus, in the focus groups in the problematic neighbourhoods, residents were clearly dissatisfied with the level of environmental quality they lived with: there was a sense of injustice that other neighbourhoods appeared better maintained than their own, as well as feelings of shame, depression and anger. Acute feelings of powerlessness were also voiced: there was discussion of trying to complain “but it got you nowhere”, of trying to clean up litter and rubbish only for it to reappear next day and an admission that residents in general and even they as individuals sometimes gave up trying to keep their neighbourhood clean. The notion of political rationing implies that those neighbourhoods which expect higher service standards, will receive higher standards. It is difficult to identify direct evidence of this interplay as the processes are likely to be subtle and not necessarily recognised by those involved, but the cumulative evidence across all the various aspects of political rationing suggests that neighbourhoods where people were able to articulate their demands vociferously and to use the levers of power effectively, could be influential over the quality of service provision. In fact, one manager was quite willing to admit that this was the case

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Those areas where there are higher expectations, coupled with the ability to communicate through a councillor, get more spent on them (manager, Environmental Service Department).

The evidence from this research supports what we already know about the extent to which more-affluent individuals and groups are willing and able to protect their quality of lives. It suggests that there are a range of ways in which environmental services may be sensitive to the relative political power of different kinds of neighbourhoods and that this can help us to understand why poor neighbourhoods can have such challenging environmental amenity. The overall analysis has, however, shown that the response of service providers to power differentials between neighbourhoods is only one part of a complex set of processes which lead to services being rationed to poor neighbourhoods. The concluding part of the paper therefore considers the role played by all three of the proposed dimensions of rationing.

Conclusion: The Interplay between Institutional, Reactive and Political Rationing This paper has proposed and evidenced three distinctive dimensions of the same basic process: the limitation of environmental services to neighbourhoods with the greatest levels of needs for such services. It offers powerful evidence that deprived neighbourhoods can be underserved in relation to environmental service provision and has explicated a range of ways that this can happen. The focus of this concluding part of the paper is to suggest how the three dimensions of rationing might connect with one another. It proposes that there is an interplay between the different aspects of rationing and suggests that there is evidence that they feed into and feed off each other, and that this further intensifies the nature

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and extent to which these services are underprovided to the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Figure 1 is intended to capture this idea, showing the links between the three forms of rationing. Reactive rationing

Political rationing

Institutional rationing Figure 1. Different forms of rationing: feedback and intensification effects

Although the figure might be suggestive of a vicious circularity, such that institutional, reactive and political rationing all feed off and intensify one another, the emboldening of the institutional rationing box aims to suggest a starting-point within these processes. Thus, it is argued that, when public services are not provided proportionate to levels of need within neighbourhoods, this very underprovision sets in train further processes which disadvantage the neighbourhoods still further. Turning first to the interplay between institutional and reactive rationing. The first and most straightforward way in which these two processes are linked was evident from the foregoing analysis. Thus, it was clear that reactive rationing was fuelled or even provoked by the fact that there was an institutional failure to provide levels of service or staffing sufficient to meet levels of need. Thus, the front-line operatives working in the neediest places told of the overwhelming nature of their workloads and of how they coped by cutting corners or dropping standards. They were clearly unable to undertake their jobs effectively and the problems duly intensified. However, this very situation may also feed

back to fuel propensities to institutional rationing. Thus, it was argued in the paper that the underprovision of services to deprived neighbourhoods was legitimated via the ingrained, institutional preference for cultural, behaviourial explanations of neighbourhood environmental problems. In situations where workers and their local managers feel they are unable to clean neighbourhoods effectively, they may also feel justified in blaming residents for causing the problems they encounter, particularly when a discourse of blame is prevalent within the wider institution. The circularity is evident, but so also is a potential solution. If service levels could be provided commensurate with need, then the impetus for reactive rationing might also be mitigated. Limited evidence of this possibility was provided in more positive and agentive testimony of those operatives providing services in improving neighbourhoods. In relation to the interplay between institutional and political rationing, again the very fact that some neighbourhoods fail to get the service levels they need may depress residents’ expectations and reduce the propensity either for individual or collective political agititation for service enhancements in the very neighbourhoods which require these the most. Thus, institutional rationing may help to create a sense of limited political or collective efficacy which, as has been shown, translates into less pressure exerted on service providers. This can legitimate underprovision and thereby has the potential to complete further feedback loops—between institutional and political rationing and between reactive and political rationing. The evidence from the study on the tendency both for workers and local managers to be sensitive to complaints, to resort to non-strategic, ‘fire-fighting’ when under pressure and to cut corners and work to shoddy standards was striking. The paper has shown that—in the arena of environmental service provision—poor


neighbourhoods in the UK can suffer from poor services. It has shown that subtle processes may be in play within service departments which can be conceived of as forms of rationing and it has shown that these can effectively limit service levels such that they fail fully to meet needs. The paper shows the value of revisiting earlier debates on service rationing and the salience of rethinking these ideas in order to reach a better understanding of contemporary neighbourhood service provision. A key aspect of the analysis is to show that rationing can still be a feature of modes of service provision where not only is universalism the norm, but also there exists a policy and practice framework which allows for service enhancements designed to target need. The evidence of the research is that the traditional concerns of the rationing literature are still relevant—the practices and attitudes of Lipsky’s street-level bureaucrats require continued interrogation, for example. However, the paper also suggests that a more radical conceptualisation of rationing can also be illuminating, where this is defined as a failure to compensate fully for variations in need at the neighbourhood level. What this paper has not been able to do is to identify the actual extent to which rationing processes depress environmental quality or to consider the role of rationing alongside other causes of environmental problems. Arguably, its main contribution is to evidence a continuing need to explore, in new ways, the nature and quality of public service provision in relation to its context of delivery.

Notes 1. A public inquiry in the UK defined institutional racism as The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, race or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and

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behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereo typing which disadvantage minority ethnic people (MacPherson Report, 1999, para 6.34). 2. The notion of reactive rationing is not designed to include policy and practice which is reactive rather than preventative in terms of its orientation to environmental problems. Rather the term ‘reactive’ is used almost as an opposite to the term ‘institutional’ to denote rationing behaviours which involve the use of discretion in response to neighbourhood conditions or other factors. 3. This and the other two papers in this series extend the analysis of research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, from which a policy report was published (Hastings et al., 2005). 4. There is a two-tier system of local government in some locations in England. The top-tier county councils were excluded from the sample as they do not have responsibility for the majority of street-scene environmental services. 5. Separate focus groups were convened for each neighbourhood with operatives and with local residents, with focus groups preferred over individual interviews in order to elicit informal discussion and debate amongst people who—it was presumed—would not be used to talking about environmental problems and responses to them. Operative focus groups all consisted of front-line, unpromoted staff but there was variation across the case studies in terms of their actual remits. 6. ‘Co-production’ in relation to public services foregrounds the idea that service users play a key role in the effectiveness of services, either through formalised joint working or through the quality of more informal interactions and behaviours which enable effective service delivery (see Cahn, 2001; Boyle et al., 2006). In the context of the subject matter of this paper, co-production could also therefore refer to the extent to which residents are involved in littering or indeed clearing up. Such aspects are discussed in a related paper (Hastings, 2009). In this paper, it is the political rather than behavioural aspects of co-production which are to the fore.

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Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for funding the research on which this paper is based. John Flint, Carl Mills and Carol Mackenzie were significant contributors to the project and the anonymous referees provided insightful comments.

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