Abstract

THE IMAGERY OF "ARCHITECTURE" IN SOCIAL POLICY MAKING AND ANALYSIS

Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman

Recently the concept of 'architecture' of social policy, imported from Europe, has begun to be applied to Canada. This paper will attempt to explore and develop the imagery of architecture by using it to analyze ongoing reforms in three areas of family policy - early childhood development, child benefits and parental leave. The paper will argue that there are two key forms of architecture as the concept applies to public policy: political architecture and policy architecture. Neither can work without the other, and all too often policy reform fails because it never develops an adequate policy architecture to transform political architecture into workable policy. The paper also will discuss the potential wider applicability of the architecture imagery to other areas of Canadian public policy, such as reform of welfare and Employment Insurance, employment and learning services, supports and services for Canadians with disabilities, and community economic development. It will argue that the concept of architecture can be useful both for policy-making and critical policy analysis.

Bios

Ken Battle is President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, an independent think tank based in Ottawa. Educated at Queen's University and Oxford University, Battle is one of Canada's leading social policy thinkers. He has played a key role both inside and outside government in the reform of Canadian social policy, including the development of the new National Child Benefit and the proposed Seniors Benefit. He served as a member of the Ministerial Task Force on Social Security Reform in 1994 and as policy advisor on child benefits reform to the Minister of Human Resources Development in 1996 and 1997. He has published widely on social policy, including income security programs, taxation, medicare, social services, poverty and income inequality, social spending and the politics of social policy. He has taught graduate courses at Queen's University's School of Policy Studies and Carleton University. In July 2000, Mr. Battle was awarded the Order of Canada (social sciences category) for his work on the National Child Benefit and reform of social policy: "His contributions have helped to forge and to shape Canadian social policy."

Sherri Torjman is Vice-President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy. She is the author of many Caledon reports including Reclaiming our Humanity, The Social Dimension of Sustainable Development, Strategies for a Caring Society, Survival-of-the-Fittest Employment Policy, From Information to Application: How Communities Learn, Reintegrating the Unemployed Through Customized Training and Are Outcomes the Best Outcome? Ms. Torjman wrote the first welfare series of reports for the National Council of Welfare and has authored four books on disability policy. She has worked for the House of Commons Committee on the Disabled, the House of Commons Committee on Child Care and the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. She taught a course in social policy at McGill University and is a former Board Member of The Trillium Foundation. In February 2003, Finance Minister John Manley named Sherri Torjman co-chair of the Technical Advisory Committee on Tax Measures for Persons With Disabilities.

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