Devolving digitalisation:local government, local welfare and the digital welfare state

There is increasing interest in examining the digital welfare state. To date, much ethical and analytical scrutiny of digital welfare has focused on the large, nation-state level initiatives of digital transformation of social security or minimum income schemes, with less attention given to what is happening in local government, especially in the UK. This is despite local authorities playing an essential role in citizen-state relations, and their increasing (yet uneven) move towards an ‘interface first’ governance for the provision of local services. This article has three key purposes. The first is to outline the increasing importance of one field of local government activity that raises demands for digitalisation of processes: local welfare (such as discretionary and local welfare assistance). Where local government has the burden for the design and delivery of policy - as with local welfare - this comes with tied responsibility for the design and delivery of digitalisation of these processes. The second aim is to outline the variations of local welfare administration and reflect on the role of digital interfaces in this context. To do so, we draw on examples from commissioned funding through the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and local government. Finally, building on the arguments throughout the article, we set out areas for future research in local digital welfare provision.