Constructing a Service: Context and Discourse in Housing Management

The intention of this paper is to make a theoretical contribution to the understanding of housing management as practised in the UK. Drawing on social theory, the paper examines the wider context within which housing management operates, and suggests that it is only through unravelling this context that the ambiguities and uncertainties of direction which characterise housing management can be explained. A framework is constructed which attempts to elucidate this context in terms of its constituent elements: the structural-the ideologies, values and beliefs held by society; the institutional-the activities and attitudes of institutions and agents; the organisational-pertaining to the organisation of housing management; the operational-the situations with which housing management has to contend on the ground; and the intersubjective-the way in which the delivery of the service is interpreted by those on the front line. Each of these is examined in turn, exposing the contradictions and discourses which are implicated in the construction of housing management. The result is a situation of complexity in which housing management is put in the position of having to reconcile and mediate between conflicting messages if it is to fulfil what is arguably its aim, of delivering a consistent and coherent service.