Martin Caraher
Professor of Food and Health Policy
Centre for Food Policy
City University
London EC1V OHB
m.caraher@city.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7040 4161
•From Food Poverty to Food
Banks: Examples of
Successful Failures!
•Issues for measurement and measurement of
what
3
Things fall apart the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimed tide is loosed, and
everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity
Measurement
• Faced with a policy problem and making sense of it
• Evidence of what?
• How to explain it?
Evidence into practice: a cycle of improvement?
(as seen by UK’s Health Dev’t Agency now NICE)
Source: Kelly M, Spellar V, Meyrick J (2004). Getting evidence into practice in public health. London:6HDA p 2
An example
Accepted Manuscript
Title: The Public Health Responsibility Deal: brokering a deal
for public health, but on whose terms?
Author: Clare Panjwani Martin Caraher
PII:
DOI:
Reference:
S0168-8510(13)00290-X
http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.11.002
HEAP 3133
To appear in:
Health Policy
Received date:
Revised date:
Accepted date:
25-7-2013
7-11-2013
8-11-2013
Please cite this article as: Panjwani CM The Public Health Responsibility Deal:
brokering a deal for public health, but on whose terms?, Health Policy (2013),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.11.002
This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication.
As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript.
The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof
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The responsibility deal
The New Politics of Food
Sustainable food futures
Content'
Proce
The initial policy scoping and literature review highlight the lack o
Figure 22 Policy analysis triangle, adapted from Walt and Gilson 1994
the formation of Healthy Start. Kingdon’s model of policy streams
Context'
an organised approach to studying the influences on public policy
(Cairney 2012). Analysis grounded in policy streams could provid
Actors'
understanding.
Individuals!
Groups!
Organisations!
Content'
Figure 23 Kingdon's Multiple Streams
Process'
The initial policy scoping and literature review highlight the lack of clarity around
Problem!
the formation of Healthy Start. Kingdon’s model of policy streams (figure 23) offers
an organised approach to studying the influences on public policy formation
(Cairney 2012). Analysis grounded in policy streams could provide a depth of
understanding.
Figure 23 Kingdon's Multiple Streams
Problem!
Policy!
Politics!
Policy!
window!
Policy!
window!
Policy!
Politics!
Civil Society
NGOs
NGOs
Government
Business
Successful failures (Seibel 1989, Seibel 1996)
• Seibel theorised that there were some challenges in society that
were both inevitable and unsolvable, although highly visible. These
issues are troubling for a public concerned with social justice, and
problematic for politicians who need to avoid blame for allowing
such problems to exist
• Seibel argued that such problems tend to be of particular interest to
voluntary organisations, keen to fill spaces where the state and the
market may have failed and attractive to politicians as it allows them
to shift the focus away from government delivering services.
• The involvement of civic society can thus be celebrated by
politicians and the public alike, thankful that well-meaning others are
addressing difficult issues.
• Meanwhile such celebration both reaffirms the importance of the
work these organisations are undertaking, providing legitimacy to
their efforts.
An example
• But in contrast to welfare
recipients who were
‘demonised’ and to whom
categories of
undeserving/deserving poor
were applied this was not so
of users of food banks
• Articles from -2001 food
bank had to be explained but
2011 it was a shorthand for
problems
So…..
• Seibel contends that as a result, management will construct their
operations to ensure they have a continuous supply of sufficient
and appropriate resources maybe even encouraging a new stream
of users, even if the objectives of the organisation become
compromised in the process.
• Seibel calls such organisations ‘successful failures’.
• Their voluntary or faith based nature made criticism socially
unacceptable. There is a halo effect around such organisations
doing good deeds.
The limits of evidence
• Seibel argued that such failure would never be acceptable in
the public or private sectors where audits and accountability
are sacrosanct.
• Therefore the ‘mellow weakness’ of the voluntary sector makes
it the perfect vehicle for tackling problems that cannot be
solved and in policy terms distracting attention from the
underlying causes to the symptoms of the problem.
Area
Europe
Evidence
All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom
Classification
Classification
Success
Failure
X
(2014)
Van de Horst, Pascucci and Bol (2014) **
X
Lambie-Mumford (2013)
X
Silvasti and Karjalainen (2014) *
Garrone, Melacini and Perego (2014) **
Castetbon et al (2011)
USA
Canada
X
X
X
Poppendieck (1999)
X
Winne (2008)
X
Poppendieck (2014) *
X
Tarasuk and Dachner. (2009)
X
Tarasuk, Dachner and Loopstra (2014) **
X
Saul and Curtis (2013)
X
Tarasuk and Eakin (2003).
X
Riches and Tarasuk (2014) *
Australia
Lindberg, Lawrence, Gold and Friel **
X
X
Booth and Whelan (2014) **
Butcher et al (2014) **
Booth (2014)
X
X
X
Some reflections
• Evidence of what: process/doing something/media space
• Not outcomes!
• Volunteer engagement? Big Society arguments.
• The ‘product’ becomes the drive, that is not to say that the product
creates need.
• Formal evidence is not enough we became aware of the need to
address fundamentals of political positioning and social justice, this
results in a tension between charity provision and the role of the state
vis-a-vie rights.
• The social processes which frame the role of evidence within policymaking
the formation of Healthy Start. Kingdon’s model of policy streams (figure 23) offers
an organised approach to studying the influences on public policy formation
(Cairney 2012). Analysis grounded in policy streams could provide a depth of
understanding.
Figure 23 Kingdon's Multiple Streams
Problem!
Policy!
window!
Policy!
Politics!
Why should not Old Men be Mad?
Why should not old men be mad?
………………………….
And when they know what old books tell
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad
References
•
•
•
•
•
•
All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom (2014), ‘Feeding
Britain: Strategy for zero hunger in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
London, Archbishop of Canterbury’s Charitable Trust
Booth S (2014) Food banks in Australia. In Riches, G. and Silvasti, T., (2014) First
World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?, 2 nd edition, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp 15-28.
•
Silvasti, T and Karjalainen J (2014) Hunger in a Nordic Welfare State.
In In Riches, G. and Silvasti, T., (2014) First World Hunger Revisited:
Food Charity or the Right to Food?, 2nd edition, New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, pp 72-86
•
Tarasuk, V. and J. M. Eakin (2003). "Charitable food assistance as
symbolic gesture: an ethnographic study of food banks in Ontario."
Social science & medicine 56(7): 1505-1515.
•
Tarasuk, V. and Dachner, N. (2009), “The proliferation of charitable
meal programs in Toronto”, Canadian Public Policy, Vol. XXXV No. 4,
pp. 433-450.
•
Tarasuk VS, Dachner, N and Loopstra R. (2014),"Food banks, welfare,
and food insecurity in Canada", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp.
1405 – 1417
•
van der Horst, H. Pascucci, S. and Bol, W. (2014),"The “dark side” of
food banks? Exploring emotional responses of food bank receivers in
the Netherlands", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp. 1506 – 1520
Booth, S. and Whelan, J (2014),"Hungry for change: the food banking industry in
Australia", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp. 1392 - 1404
Butcher, LM. Rose, M., Leisha C., et al (2014),"Foodbank of Western Australia's
healthy food for all", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp. 1490 - 1505
Castetbon K. et al (2011) Dietary behaviour and nutritional status in underprivileged
people using food aid (ABENA study, 2004–2005). J Hum Nutr Diet, 24, pp. 560–571
•
Garrone, P., Melacini, M. and Perego, A. (2014),"Surplus food recovery and donation
in Italy: the upstream process", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp. 1460 – 1477
•
Lambie-Mumford, H. (2013) ‘Every town should have one’: Emergency Food Banking
in the UK. Jnl Soc. Pol. (2013), 42, (1), pp.73-89
•
Lindberg, R Lawrence, M., Gold, L and Friel, S (2014),"Food rescue – an Australian
example", British Food Journal, Vol. 116 Iss 9 pp. 1478 - 1489
•
Poppendieck, J. (1999). Sweet Charity?, Penguin Paperbacks.
•
Winne, M. (2008). Closing the food gap: Resetting the table in the land
of plenty, Beacon Press.
•
Poppendieck, J. (2014) Food Assistance Hunger and the End of Welfare in the USA.
In Riches, G. and Silvasti, T., (2014) First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or
the Right to Food?, 2nd edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 176-190
•
•
Seibel
Seibel, W. (1989). "The function of mellow weakness; nonprofit
organizations as problem nonsolvers in Germany." The nonprofit sector
in international perspective. Yale University: 177-193.
•
•
Riches, G. and Tarasuk V (2014) Canada: Thirty years of Food Charity and Public
Policy Neglect. In First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to Food?,
2nd edition, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 42-56.
Saul, N. and A. Curtis (2013). The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a
Community and Inspired a Movement, Random House Digital, Inc.
•
•
Seibel, W. (1996). "Successful Failure An Alternative View on
Organizational Coping." American Behavioral Scientist 39(8): 10111024.