Policies of Personalisation in Norway and England: On the Impact of Political Context

Within Europe, the Norwegian and English welfare states represent two different welfare regimes. Due to common demographic challenges of an ageing population as well as grass- roots pressures, particularly from disabled people, significant changes in the delivery of long-term care services for older and disabled people have taken place. This article focuses on the change towards personalisation policies encouraging greater choice and control in regard to care services, and uses the case of ‘cash-for-care’, which gives people an allocation of funding to meet their needs, to discuss conditions and implications of personalisation policies within different contexts. Based on a theoretical framework exploring a democratic and a market discourse of personalisation policies, the article provides a comparative analysis of the Norwegian and English cash-for-care schemes. While a crucial common change in the public sector's role towards at-arm’s-length long-term care services occurred, significant differences remain: while English residents are given greater choice and control from the beginning of the allocation of cash-for-care they also face more insecure circumstances due to the simultaneously stimulated care provider market. The Norwegian case, however, shows a possibility of increasing choice and control without a large diversity in a care provider market.