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BILLIS OUTLINES ALTERNATIVES TO AN INTEGRATED TEAM APPROACH TO BE CONSIDERED IN REORGANIZING SOCIAL WELFARE DELIVERY SYSTEMS TO BETTER THE LINK BETWEEN SOCIAL POLICY AND ACTUAL SERVICE DELIVERY. HE FEELS THAT THE STATIST BUREAUCRATIC APPROACH MAY NOT BE THE MOST APPROPRIATE FOR DEALING WITH SOCIAL DISCOMFORT.

Fifteen years have passed since the Centre for Voluntary Organisation was founded in London. In reviewing the history of research on the voluntary sector in the United Kingdom, the author asks whether the progressive blurring of boundaries between the governmental, proprietary, and voluntary sectors means that in the long run the third sector will disappear. He argues that it will not, proposing that the core of the voluntary sector is the associational base out of which organizations grow. In turn, that base has connections to the personal, nonorganizational sector of life. Sector blurring occurs at the boundaries between the sectors, but mixed form organizations generally do not have associational bases.

This article presents a conceptual framework for exploring the development of voluntary organizations. The first part of the theory distinguishes busi ness and public bureaucracies from associations and defines the agency as a hybrid or ambiguous organization. The second part of the theory analyzes the system of "roots" of voluntary agencies, which is defined as the relationship between implicit welfare policy, financial resources, and human resources. It is suggested that voluntary agency development can be understood, and therefore planned, by examining its root system and that severe imbalances among operational explanations, root system, and governing body can lead to many familiar problems.

An analysis of several critical unresolved issues facing social services departments (SSDs) that were established in England & Wales following the publication of the important 1968 Seebohm Report. Three main issues are discussed: (1) the boundaries of welfare bureaucracies; (2) the impact of qualitative organizational change; & (3) the dilemma of social conscience administration. SSDs were set up within an era dominated by the "social conscience" policy -- an optimistic belief that the central problems of welfare have been solved, & that change is cumulative & in the direction of greater generosity & wider purpose. However, an alternative analysis of SSDs leads to the concept of social breakdown, a state resulting in institutionalization. This is distinguished from another category of needs, social discomfort, which embraces problems of isolation & loneliness. Questions are raised as to the appropriateness of governmental intervention in "discomfort" problems, & the failure of government to intervene in all the categories of breakdown. The establishment of the new SSDs, which replace smaller & less complex agencies, is analysed as a qualitative organizational change. In particular, the phenomena of "missing" levels of work & lack of administrative capacity are discussed. Examples of the conceptual challenge to current administrative beliefs are given, & an outline of a theory of levels of response to social need is provided, with illustrations. Modified HA.

This paper presents a discontinuous analysis of organizational development and the part played by administrative capacity considered as a summation of individual attributes. Based on 20 years'study of one kibbutz, it is suggested that there are qualitatively different levels of demand for administrative capacity, which can be identified and which, if they are not in equilibrium with available aggregate supply, cause serious organizational disturbance. In particular, imbalance in the supply-demand equation is presented as an alternative explanation of large-scale defection of members in the case study. Analysis of the career progressions of a number of kibbutz managers supports the contention that the rate of development of administrative capacity varies and that training cannot lift managers through the critical boundaries associated with different strata of work.