Street level bureaucracy under pressure: Job insecurity, business logic and challenging users

Since the introduction of New Public Management the possibility for street-level practitioners to exercise discretion under the top-down and bottom-up pressures for more accountability has been questioned. The ensuing debate has focused on how the hybridisation of bureaucratic, professional and managerial logics has been affecting the discretional leeway of front-line workers. Drawing on this background, we present two pieces of research on street level bureaucrats working in different organisational contexts in Italy, public employment offices and public housing managing bodies, focusing on their discretionary power in the light of the reform process of public services.