Working in the public sector for long enough, you get to know its strengths and weaknesses. One
area where it can be weak: messy service systems. This weakness can be made even worse by
the way organisations attempt to help the public, which just makes the system even messier.
People who need services struggle to find their way around the system to get exactly what they
need. There are so many unconnected parts to the system that it’s not surprising that they have
this struggle, and this includes the organisation where I work, which provides public health
services and support to those in need.
To combat the confusion faced by clients, our organisation (like most public organisations) funds
case managers employed by NGOs to help clients find and access the services they need and
are eligible for. It’s a process created with good intentions, and is absolutely necessary for the
clients who have very high needs for support.
This week I discovered that our organisation is procuring case management services that are
very similar to what other organisations are also sourcing for their clients. I dug around a bit and
found that one organisation – which provides disability support to its clients – is using the exact
same NGO as us to provide their clients with case management for a very similar set of needs to
those that we deliver. NGO case managers used by an array of public organisations seem to be
providing more or less identical services, often to the same clients, but allocated in slightly
different ways.
It’s hard to see how having several different case managers is any less confusing for clients than
having several different service providers was. How does throwing case manager upon case
manager into the system look any less complex to clients? It doesn’t. It just adds a middle man to
every service they need to access, rather than making it simpler for them to access all the
services they might need.
This certainly isn’t a good use of resources – the cost of a case manager for every service adds
up, and some unscrupulous (or administratively challenged) NGOs can charge multiple agencies
for case management services provided to a single client!
We could avoid this wasted allocation of resources and actually simplify messy service systems
for members of the public if communication between organisations was up to scratch. Instead,
organisations stay insular and assign or procure case managers based on their own structures
and world views, rather than giving clients what they really need. Being part of one of these
organisations, it’s damned frustrating.
