Splitting social services from income determination formally removed caseworker discretion.

Evidence

The stated intention was to limit discretion of case workers in support determination and free them to provide services without the burden of client appeals or tactics designed to obtain more benefits. … This change in policy probably deserves support because the capacity of social service workers to provide meaningful assistance to clients had become so circumscribed that their interventions had largely lost whatever beneficial potential may have existed in the previous definition of social worker roles. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1421

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: a procedural reform advertised as reducing bias may simply relocate discretionary judgment to a different, less visible class of staff.