Policy Rationales for Electronic Information Systems: An Area of Ambiguity

Child welfare and protection (CWP) has engaged in the introduction of Electronic Information Systems (EIS), such as electronic recording, assessment and decision-making tools. It has been argued that EIS have adverse consequences in which governments are conceived as homogeneous entities that install EIS for self-interested purposes. Consequently, research focuses on how social workers evade/reshape the sometimes pernicious effects of EIS. Insufficient attention has been given to the governmental perspective and to why governments install EIS. In this article, we contribute to this debate by performing semi-structured interviews with policy actors (directors, policy advisers and staff members) in the field of CWP in Flanders. Asked about their rationales for installing EIS, they spoke of administrative, policy, care and economic reasons. However, while advocating these EIS, they also expressed a critical attitude concerning the usefulness of EIS, hoping that practitioners would move back and forth between governmental demands and day-to-day realities, to establish a more responsive social work. This ambiguous situation in which policy makers seem to be both strong supporters and critics of EIS at the same time is captivating, since it seems no longer necessary to perceive governments as a homogeneous bogeyman and social work as a victim.