SOCIAL WORK AND MANAGEMENT ›› 2025, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (4): 26-37.

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The Politics of Evidence: What Is Service Effectiveness? A thematic Analysis Based on Interviews with Stakeholders of Government-Purchased Social Work Services

XIANG Yu, SHEN Libing, HE Zhifeng   

  1. Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai, Zhuhai, Guangdong,519087, China
  • Received:2024-07-01 Online:2025-07-15 Published:2025-07-15

Abstract: The government procurement of social services model has been a common means of social service provision, and service effectiveness evaluation is an important part of this model. This study used thematic analysis to examine interviews with stakeholders of government-purchased social work services to clarify purchasers and service providers perceive service effectiveness. The study found that the purchaser’s understanding of service effectiveness includes the number of service outputs, innovation in service programes, leadership recognition, and service delivery. The service provider’s understanding of service effectiveness, on the other hand, includes the change of service recipients,their satisfaction and recognition, service strategy, and service delivery. The research indicates that both parties harbor varied, often conflicting, perceptions of service effectiveness, while in practice, the service providers tende to align with the purchaser’s perception. This alignment occurs due to the inherent flaws in the current purchasing service model, which fails to function as a truly effective quasi-market mechanism. Consequently, this leads to a confusion surrounding the concept of effectiveness, a monopolization of the discourse on effectiveness, and the distortion of professional effectiveness by administrative power.

Key words: government purchased services, service effectiveness, evaluation, evidence, purchaser, service provider

CLC Number: 

  • C916
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