Informal active-inactive case sorting masks real service shortfalls

Evidence

First, as mentioned earlier street-level bureaucracies usually must choose additional services rather than improvement in services if they have slack resources. Second, claims of qualitative improvements in the form of spending more time on each case are often spurious. Case loads are often informally divided into active and inactive categories. The inactive cases are often not truly inactive but represent cases to which the street-level bureaucrat is unable to attend in the ordinary course of the day. They are regarded as low priority for reasons having little to do with the client but a lot to do with the pressures on the workers. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 299

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to street-level discretion creating de facto rationing policy that diverges from formal policy — the core mechanism being tested about how bureaucratic practice outruns stated norms. — connects to: Caseload reductions only change practice past a threshold, so small cuts do nothing; Protective routines get distorted to minimize client contact and drop cases — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 741; Waiting-list persistence is ambiguous evidence of genuine client need

Broader Connections

• Protective routines get distorted to minimize client contact and drop cases #expands (0.90) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 741
• Waiting-list persistence is ambiguous evidence of genuine client need #qualifies (0.72)