Legal Compliance in Street-Level Bureaucracy: A Study of UK Housing Officers

TY - JOUR

T1 - Legal Compliance in Street-Level Bureaucracy

T2 - A Study of UK Housing Officers

AU - Hunter, Caroline Margaret

AU - Bretherton, Joanne

AU - Halliday, Simon

AU - Johnsen, Sarah

N1 - © 2015 Authors. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Law & Policy. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.

PY - 2016/1/21

Y1 - 2016/1/21

N2 - Street-level bureaucratic theory is now at a fairly mature stage. The focus on street-level bureaucrats as ‘ultimate policymakers’ is now as familiar as it is important. Likewise, the parallel socio-legal study of the implementation of public law in public organisations has demonstrated the inevitable gap between law-in-the-books and law-in-action. Yet, the success of these advances comes at the potential cost of us losing sight of the importance of law itself. This article analyses some empirical data on the decision-making about one legal concept - ‘vulnerability’ in UK homelessness law. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, we argue that, when it comes to the implementation of law, the legal abilities and propensities of the bureaucrats must be taken into account. Bureaucrats’ abilities to understand legal materials make a difference to the likelihood of legal compliance. Second, we must also pay attention to the character of the legal provisions. Where a provision is simple, it is more likelyto facilitate legal knowledge and demands nothing of bureaucrats in terms of legalcompetence. Where the provision is also ‘inoffensive’ and ‘liveable’ it is less likely to act as an impediment to legal conscientiousness

AB - Street-level bureaucratic theory is now at a fairly mature stage. The focus on street-level bureaucrats as ‘ultimate policymakers’ is now as familiar as it is important. Likewise, the parallel socio-legal study of the implementation of public law in public organisations has demonstrated the inevitable gap between law-in-the-books and law-in-action. Yet, the success of these advances comes at the potential cost of us losing sight of the importance of law itself. This article analyses some empirical data on the decision-making about one legal concept - ‘vulnerability’ in UK homelessness law. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, we argue that, when it comes to the implementation of law, the legal abilities and propensities of the bureaucrats must be taken into account. Bureaucrats’ abilities to understand legal materials make a difference to the likelihood of legal compliance. Second, we must also pay attention to the character of the legal provisions. Where a provision is simple, it is more likelyto facilitate legal knowledge and demands nothing of bureaucrats in terms of legalcompetence. Where the provision is also ‘inoffensive’ and ‘liveable’ it is less likely to act as an impediment to legal conscientiousness

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85000842695&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/lapo.12049

DO - 10.1111/lapo.12049

M3 - Article

SN - 1467-9930

VL - 38

SP - 81

EP - 95

JO - Law & Policy

JF - Law & Policy

IS - 1

ER -