A preliminary insight into the nature of street-level bureaucracy amongst front-line workers of the Malaysian social welfare department

This paper presents a preliminary findings of an on-going study on service delivery by front-line workers of the Malaysian Social Welfare Department (SWD) in the area of child welfare services. The study utilises Michael Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracy theory as its theoretical basis. The analysis conducted on data derived from a pilot study had produced a preliminary insight which supports the assumptions contained in the Street-Level Bureaucracy theory. The findings suggest that, as far as the front-line workers of the SWD are concerned, the nature of work expected of them by their organization is naturally wide-ranging. Even though their role within the organization seemed to be focused on one service area, namely child welfare services, in reality they have numerous responsibilities tied to their jobs. As front-line workers, they are equipped with various rules, regulations and standard operating procedures, yet when it comes to actually performing their tasks, they still have to depend on the use of discretions in various aspects of their job. Hence this preliminary analysis provides a valuable insight regarding the nature of problem plaguing the service delivery and job performance of the SWD street-level workers, and by inference, the policy process within the area of child welfare services.