Analysis of the welfare state emphasises that access to social security support is a key component of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Recent literature has identified administrative burden as a concept that helps us to understand an emerging dynamic between the state and the citizen, where citizens must deal with increasingly onerous administrative ‘costs’ in order to access services or support from the state. Increased administrative burden has been identified at many stages of access to social security support and government services. Burdens are often talked about in general terms, that is, the amount of administrative complexity associated with a particular welfare service. In this paper, we look at how administrative burden can be found in even the smallest unit of administration—application forms. Taking a form from the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), we contribute to the growing literature on application forms and administrative burden by developing a framework to assess the complexity of questions on an application form. We show that in areas where citizens lives are complex, questions on forms can constrain the capacity of citizens to accurately represent their circumstances and, in turn, constrain their ability to gain access to support.

中文翻译：

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表格中有什么？检查申请表的复杂性和行政负担

对福利国家的分析强调，获得社会保障支持是国家与公民之间关系的关键组成部分。最近的文献将行政负担确定为一个概念，它有助于我们理解国家与公民之间正在出现的动态，在这种情况下，公民必须处理日益繁重的行政“成本”才能获得国家的服务或支持。在获得社会保障支持和政府服务的许多阶段都发现行政负担增加。负担经常被笼统地谈论，即与特定福利服务相关的行政复杂程度。在本文中，我们将探讨如何在最小的行政单位——申请表中发现行政负担。从澳大利亚国家残疾保险计划 (NDIS) 中获取表格，我们通过开发一个框架来评估申请表上问题的复杂性，为越来越多的关于申请表和行政负担的文献做出贡献。我们表明，在公民生活复杂的地区，有关表格的问题会限制公民准确表达其情况的能力，进而限制他们获得支持的能力。