Abstrakt
The last amendment of the Act No. 117/1995 Coll., On state social support, in 2020 brought changes in the Czech system of benefits that are often referred to in society as "family benefits", as most of them target social events of families with dependent children. The amendment changed mainly two out of five benefits, concretely parental and housing allowance.
Our paper aims at the amendment effect on the work of street-level bureaucrats. The amendment led to the authoritative implementation of changes.
Street-level bureaucrats could not interfere in it in any way at the level of direct contact with the clients of the Labour Office of the Czech Republic, and they faced increasing administrative burden and ambiguity of conditions. They had to also react to insufficient resources that the street-level bureaucrats mainly referred to as information and time.
Furthermore, they couldn't face these new working conditions through so-called coping mechanisms, primarily routine activities. The second aspect that we touched in our paper is the different impacts on the target groups.
The policy mirrored the framing of the groups in public and political discourse. While families drawing parental allowance are framed positively by media, politics, and street-level bureaucrats, the families drawing housing allowance are framed negatively by all groups.
They are perceived as those who abuse the system. The implemented policy reflected such framing, and while parental allowance became more benevolent, the housing allowance became stricter and more subject to control.
We based our research on a qualitative approach. We obtained data through document analysis (legislative documents, stenographic records, internal materials of Czech Labour Office), media analysis using Newton Media Search), and semi-structured interviews with street-level bureaucrats working at Labour Office.