Hybridising accounting and caring: A symmetrical study of how costs and needs are combined in child protection work

In this dissertation, I investigate a problem that is currently debated within both the popular, political and academic arenas: Namely, the potential demise of professionaldecisions, as we knew them before they were transformed by the calculative practices of management accounting. With the investigation of this problem, I take part in a quest for better professional decisions. However, rather than aiming to reveal a possible demise or point out what could be done to make decisions better, I aim to find out how it is even possible to reach decisions, when elements as different as a child’s needs and the costs of a service are to be connected in the process. How is it possible, for instance, to count costs and sense the needs of a child at the same time? To be both accurate and ambiguous? Moreover, how is it possible to make conclusions about costs, when a child’s life is at stake? The purpose of inquiring into such questions is to investigate the day-to-day work of ‘hybridising’ accounting and caring practices. I hope my investigation into the different and practical efforts of hybridising accounting and
caring will reveal that each decision is the result of a tremendously complex work of valuing, calculating, organising, ordering, connecting, separating, arranging, associating, timing and spacing all the heterogeneous elements that decisions are made of.

Vi kender alle situationer, hvor vi skal være flere steder samtidigt og gøre ting samtidigt, som modstrider hinanden. Fx når vi gerne vil være forældre med overskud, der bager boller til barnets skolearrangement og samtidigt levere et perfekt produkt på arbejdet. Eller når vi gerne vil købe de mest bæredygtige varer i butikken, men samtidigt ved at der ikke er flere penge på kontoen. For socialrådgivere, der tager beslutninger om udsatte børns fremtidige liv, er sådanne oplevelser af modsætninger og konflikt et arbejdsvilkår. De tager hver dag beslutninger, der har vidtrækkende konsekvenser for de udsatte børn såvel som for de offentlige udgifter. Forskellen er dog, at socialrådgiverne ikke kan gå på kompromis, sådan som familiemoren- og faren kan. Socialrådgiverne skal overholde loven og imødekomme barnets behov og de skal tage hensyn til, at der er grænser for, hvor mange penge kommunen kan bruge på udsatte børns behov. I denne afhandling undersøger jeg, hvordan de løser dette i praksis - uden at gå på kompromis.