Local state and third sector actors routinely provide support to help people navigate their right to social security and mediate their chequered relationship to it. COVID-19 has not only underlined the significance of these actors in the claims-making process, but also just how vulnerable those working within ‘local ecosystems of support’ are to external shocks and their own internal pressures. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with organisations providing support to benefit claimants and those financially struggling during COVID-19, this paper examines the increasingly situated nature of the claims-making process across four local areas in the United Kingdom. We do so to consider what bearing ‘local ecosystems of support’ have on income adequacy, access and universality across social security systems. Our analysis demonstrates how local state and third sector actors risk amplifying inequalities that at best disadvantage, and at worst altogether exclude, particular social groups from adequate (financial) assistance. Rather than conceiving of social security as a unitary collection of social transfers, we argue that its operation needs to be understood as much more fragmented and contingent. Practitioners exhibit considerable professional autonomy and moral agency in their discretionary practice, arbitrating between competing organisational priorities, local disinvestment, and changing community needs. Our findings offer broader lessons for understanding the contemporary governance of social security across welfare states seeking to responsibilise low-income households through the modernisation of public services, localism, and welfare reforms.

中文翻译：

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调解索赔？“本地支持生态系统”如何塑造英国社会保障的运作和经验

地方州政府和第三部门的参与者经常提供支持，帮助人们了解他们的社会保障权利，并调解他们与社会保障的曲折关系。COVID-19 不仅强调了这些参与者在索赔过程中的重要性，而且还强调了在“当地支持生态系统”中工作的人对外部冲击和他们自身内部压力的脆弱性。本文利用与为受益索赔人和在 COVID-19 期间陷入财务困境的组织提供支持的组织进行的定性实地调查，研究了英国四个地方的索赔制作过程的日益定位的性质。我们这样做是为了考虑“当地支持生态系统”对收入充足性、社会保障体系的可及性和普遍性的影响。我们的分析表明，地方政府和第三部门的行为者如何冒着扩大不平等的风险，这些不平等充其量是不利的，最坏的情况是完全排斥特定社会群体获得足够的（财政）援助。我们认为，与其将社会保障视为社会转移的单一集合，不如将其运作理解为更加分散和偶然。从业者在他们的自由裁量实践中表现出相当大的专业自主权和道德能动性，在相互竞争的组织优先事项、当地撤资和不断变化的社区需求之间进行仲裁。我们的研究结果为理解当代跨福利国家的社会保障治理提供了更广泛的经验，这些福利国家寻求通过公共服务现代化、地方主义和福利改革来为低收入家庭承担责任。