Welfare and community services review: setting the policy agenda

Abstract

Two traditions manifest themselves in writings on social policy. One tradition sees the objectives of social policy as a quest after social improvement, as an exercise in setting desirable social objectives and in organizing the mechanisms of social change to achieve these objectives. It is an optimistic activity, hoping to build a consensus related to solving the gargantuan questions of the theory of benefits and their distribution. The other tradition focuses on the concept of scarcity - on the premise that demands for services and allocations always exceed the capacity of the society to deliver.