2017 Volume 9 Issue 2 Pages 87-100
After the enforcement of the NHS and Community Care Act in 1993, the ‘quasi―market’ mechanism was introduced and England became the first major European country to marketize social care services through outsourcing programmes and, later through personalization policies. This paper aims to examine the structure of the ‘quasi―market’ adopted in the field of social care in England and its impacts and difficulties based on the “typology of the quasi―market” developed by Hiraoka. The British social care market has been undergoing a transition from the ‘commissioning type’ to the ‘voucher type’. In the former type, care managers （the agents） belong to local authorities （purchasers）. They are expected to act as gatekeepers who control demand in times of austerity, and in part, it led to the failure of the markets. In the latter type, councils seek to maintain a balance between promoting choice and managing and reducing risk to protect care recipients from abuse. It is suggested that to review how to regulate informal care is one of the issues to be solved.
Annals of the Society for the Study of Social Policy
