Quality, needs and the welfare state

This chapter looks into the quality of services, including how this might relate to individual needs. If it is acknowledged that an individual needs income transfers in order to buy services and/or receive services provided by the state, there will be an issue of how good a quality of the services in question the welfare state is willing and able to finance and/or provide. The quality can be a factual element, i.e. measurable, for example, whether the operation has solved a health problem, but can also express a personal experience of how good a service was, regardless of its quality. This indicates that quality has a subjective as well as an objective side. There is thus a need to be able to assess needs as well as what type of quality is desired and whether there is the willingness to finance specific types of services in the individual welfare states. The chapter will place particular emphasis on the quality dimension and different understandings of it, as needs in several contexts are elaborated in Chapters 5 and 6. It also includes whether one is able to measure the long-term consequences of delivering different levels of quality of services, such as, for example, better daycare for children.