9. The 'Street level bureaucrats' Model

This phrase was coined by Lipsky as he examined what happens at the point where policy is translated into practice, in various human service bureaucracies such as schools, courts and welfare agencies. He argues that policy implementation in the end comes down to the people who actually implement it: the practitioners or ‘street level bureaucrats’. Thus it is not enough for research to influence formal policy formulation without also paying attention to policy in practice. In order to impact on ‘what policy does’, research must be able to relate to the situation of the street level bureaucrats.

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