Information provision by non-government actors in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme: A key market stewardship function in social care quasi-markets

Abstract

The use of quasi-markets for the delivery of social care continues to grow internationally. This has presented considerable challenges regarding governance and stewardship of these markets, to ensure they meet policy goals. To date, both scholarship and practice on quasi-market stewardship have mainly focused on the role of government. However, non-government actors can also play important stewardship roles. For effective stewardship, there needs to be integration between government and non-government actors in the system, not just a top-down approach. This paper explores the stewardship role of non-government actors in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) with a focus on the role of information provision as a key market stewardship function. Findings show non-government information providers play important stewardship roles that increase choice and control for citizens, enhance market sufficiency, diversity, and innovation, and support other actors in the system. We argue for a shift in the conception of market stewardship as primarily a government activity and recommend the market stewardship actions of non-government actors be better acknowledged, funded, and ‘joined up’ with the market stewardship role of government to enable social care quasi-markets to operate more effectively.

Points for practitioners

• Information provision by non-government actors is a key market stewardship function in social care quasi-markets.
• Market stewardship needs to be the responsibility of a much greater range of actors than government alone.
• A framework for ‘distributed stewardship’ can help join up the stewardship actions of non-government actors with those of government to support information flows for more effective stewardship.