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While there have been some studies of counterfactual analysis in history and other academic disciplines, there are very few studies in social policy and health policy. This paper explores a major critical juncture and counterfactual in the creation of the NHS. In particular, it explores the critical juncture of the discussion in the Labour Cabinet involving Bevan's proposal for nationalising the hospitals and Morrison's alternative proposal based on local government, and the counterfactual of Prime Minister Attlee summing up in favour of Morrison. It reviews the literature on the criteria for counterfactuals, and justifies the focus on the Cabinet Discussion, as this was a considered option which, with minimum change, might have led to significantly different outcomes. We consider how such an event could have come about, how credible that alternative was, and what its implications might have been. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a range of actors respond to poverty in the cost of living crisis, this paper addresses a long‐standing blind spot in social policy analysis by examining the role that corporations are playing in voluntary responses in the UK. To do this the paper introduces theories of corporate power to extend approaches to researching mixed economies of welfare, which have traditionally looked at the role of commercial entities principally in terms of their role alongside other actors in the welfare state. Building on existing food charity research, which has explored the dynamics and implications of corporate‐food charity relationships, this paper applies theories of corporate power to an analysis of the food charity related activities of the top 20 leading food retailers and casual dining brands in the UK. The analysis reveals how UK corporations exercised instrumental, structural and discursive forms of power to influence policy, set agendas and norms within food and charity systems and frame issues of food charity and hunger. The paper illustrates how a corporate power framework can add important layers to social policy analyses of mixed economies of welfare, by introducing a focus not just on operational aspects of corporate involvement, but also on the impact these corporations might be having on policy, how they are shaping the structure of welfare and the drivers of poverty through agenda setting in their markets, and the ways in which corporations influence public perceptions of social policy issues and how best to respond to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is associated with psychological variables such as increased anxiety, increased depression, steeper time discounting and greater risk aversion. However, less is known about whether short‐term changes in financial circumstances are coupled to immediate psychological responses. We present data from the Changing Cost of Living study, in which panels of adults in France (n = 232) and the UK (n = 240) completed financial and psychological surveys every month for a year (September 2022–August 2023). We found the expected overall socioeconomic gradients in anxiety, depression and time discounting. In addition, monthly fluctuations in financial situation were associated with fluctuations in depression, anxiety and risk preference. Increases in essential costs, considered separately from fluctuations in income, had an immediate impact on depression. Social support, the instrumental and emotional assistance derivable from one's social network, buffered the effects of short‐term financial fluctuations on depression and time discounting, but did not mitigate the overall gradients. We conclude that declines in income or increases in the cost of living have immediate and measurable psychological impacts, which must be borne in mind in the formulation and evaluation of social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze support for the welfare state across time and space in Great Britain. Using multilevel regression and poststratification with historical data and an original survey, we show that a virtually identical majority of people supported those policies in the mid-1990s and in 2020, but patterns of support were very different. Young and highly educated people are now the strongest supporters, as are the youngest and most highly educated geographic areas, mirroring divides over "second-dimension" issues like Brexit. However, young and highly educated voters are clustered in a small number of places, with the Labour Party struggling to win moderately educated and moderately young areas. As a result, the left's problem in majoritarian systems is not the rise of second-dimension politics per se but rather how its supporters are distributed spatially along that dimension. A majority of voters in favor of welfare and redistribution no longer translates as easily into winning a majority of places in support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates for a deepening of the English Mayoral Combined Authority (MCA) model as a mechanism for achieving better economic and social policy outcomes. It argues for greater alignment of financial resources with long-term goals, fostering co-creation and upholding democratic accountability. It explores the origins of the MCA model set within the context of wider UK devolution and successive waves of English government reform, identifies some key benefits of the MCA model such as scale, democratic legitimacy and potential for collaboration, before proposing some key areas for further development. The paper recommends a strategic focus on evolving the relationship between the MCA and public service reform, particularly in health, education and employment support. The story of North East devolution is presented as an important case study that provides lessons for the future trajectory of English devolution as a whole, while highlighting the necessity of continuous adaptation to achieve sustainable regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal Credit signalled a revolution in the delivery and costs of welfare provisioning. UC aimed to reduce spending on welfare, but in doing so now threatens the stability of a functioning and cohesive society. Over recent years, and most notably during the COVID‐19 pandemic, it has become ever clearer that adequate social security is vital to the functioning of society, as well as to the health and well‐being of the population. Yet this period has also served to highlight the fragility and insufficiency of welfare in the United Kingdom. This article explores how the current welfare crisis, is associated with UC. In this article, we also consider the uncertainty that UC has created in most recipients. We argue that there are other ways to support the most vulnerable in society, and that we are now at that critical juncture in needing to make significant change. Universal Basic Income (UBI) offers one such alternative by offering stable, individual, non‐means tested, and unconditional money transfers, to all citizens. Over the last decade, there have been multiple experiments around the world trialling basic income, each of which has a specific focus, or target population, as different elements of a UBI were scrutinised. In this article, we reflect upon what we consider to be the potential shortcomings of the current welfare system in the United Kingdom as a move away from its origin, arguing that the United Kingdom is now primed for UBI to be considered a fair and legitimate way to provide social security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares social policy responses to the cost-of-living crisis in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland. In seeking to protect citizens from an inflationary shock, a series of fundamental social policy questions arise. What would the aims of support packages be? To what extent should support be universal or targeted? If targeted, did existing policy architectures facilitate or frustrate the targeting of support? As the scale and persistence of the inflationary shock became evident, smaller and near-universal responses gave way to larger support packages with a greater reliance on targeting. Social security systems played an important role in policy responses, though often by passporting one-off payments rather than a strengthening of these core programmes. Passporting led both to improved distributional outcomes vis-à-vis the more universal elements but created new administrative challenges and led to rough justice in some circumstances. The reliance on one-off payments underlined the temporary nature of policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 immediately and radically necessitated changes in the way we worked as social researchers; not only in terms of fieldwork, but also in terms of collaboration. In this paper, we outline the rationale, processes, and potential of a collective of 14 research teams both inside and outside of academia working together across the UK to synthesise findings on the experiences of over 4,000 families parents and carers living on a low-income during the pandemic. Drawing on an approach based on meta-ethnography, our collective body of work comprises novel evidence and insights generated with a major cohort of families living on a low-income, through which we examine the impacts of the pandemic, and implications for social policy. This paper focuses on the practical, ethical, and methodological learnings and reflections on the processes of research synthesis in the pandemic context, and beyond. We set out the underpinning principles that guided our collaborative efforts before we explore the possibilities and challenges of working together to produce coherent, timely, and relevant findings that were shared with policy makers and those in power. Finally, we emphasise the significant potential of working collaboratively, and stress the importance of continuing to do so in a post-pandemic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Loneliness' impact on health and wellbeing has emerged as a public health issue in several countries. Young people are increasingly understood as a 'risk group' and intervention target for loneliness-reduction. This research paper aims to present a discourse analysis of policies and political speech about young people and loneliness. Design/methodology/approach: Using discourse analysis inspired by Carol Bacchi's "What is the Problem Represented to Be" (WPR) approach, this cross-cultural analysis studies loneliness policy in the United Kingdom (UK) and Norway. In doing so, the authors ask: What is the problem of loneliness among young people represented to be in UK and Norwegian welfare policy? Findings: The findings indicate paradoxical problematizations of the role technology plays among lonely young people, who, in this context, are divided in two categories: able normative and disabled youth. We reveal fundamental differences in beliefs about the impact of technology on these groups, and corresponding differences in the proposed solutions. The problem of young peoples' loneliness is represented as uncertainty about potential harms of digital connectedness and reduced face-to-face interactions. In contrast, the problem of loneliness among disabled youth is represented as impeded access to social realms, with technology serving a benign role as equalizer. Originality/value: Little research has examined this new policy field. The article contributes to filling this gap and encourages policymakers to consider how political discourses on loneliness may lead them to overlook digital interventions young people could find beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a replicable process for coproducing a theory of 'thriving', or more broadly 'wellbeing', in partnership with stakeholders to inform an area of policy. Coproduction promotes effectiveness, practicality, and legitimacy of wellbeing policies by combining insights from people with lived experience of that policy, the practitioners who implement it, and technical experts with relevant area specific knowledge. We illustrate our methodology using a case study of a coproduction exercise between wellbeing researchers and practitioners and users of Turn2us, a UK-based anti-poverty charity. We report both the process developed for this collaboration and the bespoke theory and measures of thriving in financial hardship that emerged from it. We emphasise the interplay between different types of inputs: quantitative and qualitative data, academic theories of wellbeing and lived experience, and formal and informal insights. Our experience demonstrates the value of contextualising wellbeing for practical contexts, serving as an important complement to top-down approaches relying on standardised theories and metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates Barbara Wootton's contributions to the discussion and implementation of a welfare system in Britain. It draws both from her theoretical work and her engagement in the public debate, including her interactions with William Beveridge and his welfare plan for post-war Britain. An assessment of Wootton's published and unpublished works allows for correlating her views on economic theory and policy with the role of the state. We claim that Wootton's critique of economic theory and her understanding of reality provided a sound foundation for her policy-making prescriptions, which contributed to a more interventionist perspective of Britain's welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explain single-mother poverty, existing research has either emphasized individualistic, or contextual explanations. Building on the prevalences and penalties framework (Brady et al. 2017), we advance the literature on single-mother poverty in three aspects: First, we extend the framework to incorporate heterogeneity among single mothers across countries and over time. Second, we apply this extended framework to Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden, whose trends in single-mother poverty (1990–2014) challenge ideal-typical examples of welfare state regimes. Third, using decomposition analyses, we demonstrate variation across countries in the relative importance of prevalences and penalties to explain time trends in single-mother poverty. Our findings support critiques of static welfare regime typologies, which are unable to account for policy change and poverty trends of single mothers. We conclude that we need to understand the combinations of changes in single mothers' social compositions and social policy contexts, if we want to explain time trends in single-mother poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a Foucauldian discourse analysis of UK social policy on work and retirement from the austerity measures of 2010 to 2019, to explore the emergence of older femininity as a key site to articulate and justify a neoliberal governmentality in old age, in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Feminist Cultural Studies' scholarship has remarked and critiqued the centrality of work in contemporary cultural discourses of female emancipation and empowerment, highlighting how the celebration of female workplace success has been employed to sustain the social, cultural, and economic project of neoliberalism. However, this academic field has focused predominantly on young women and women up to childbearing age, failing to account for the way older femininity is being increasingly included in neoliberal discourses through the encouragement to work in old age. Through the dialogic relationship between 'entrepreneurialism' and―what I call―'gendered anti‐welfarism' in old age, the UK social policy draws on a feminist vocabulary to offer 'the older entrepreneurial woman' as its ideal subject, characterized by capacity and willingness to work, personal and job‐market flexibility, responsibilization and individualization of risk, and―but only for the more privileged few―choice. Ultimately, the article illustrates how contemporary cultural discourses that place work as central to female empowerment and emancipation are not limited to younger women, but extend to older femininity through the normalization of the figure of the older entrepreneurial woman, with the articulation of a 'neoliberal feminism in old age'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers United Kingdom welfare provision for asylum seekers in the context of social protection scholarship, policy discourse more commonly associated with international development. Social protection definitions are contested, ranging from those focused on state provision to wider interpretations reflecting debates on holistic wellbeing, human rights and self-actualisation. Most recently, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has called for social protection policies for all citizens to reduce inequality among and within countries. Though there is exigency to reduce the extreme inequality existing between countries, literature is lacking on how social protection can be used to critique inequality within more economically affluent nations. Commentaries on social protection also tend to focus on economic poverty, with less attention given to vulnerabilities such as marginalisation. Literature suggests that UK asylum welfare provision is based on deterrence, control and marginalisation. In response, and to encourage equity in how all countries' public policy is assessed, this paper utilises an international social protection framework to critique UK asylum welfare provision. It concludes by advocating for transdisciplinary, human-centred and comprehensive social protection policy design, encouraging participation by a wider range of stakeholders and a holistic understanding of wellbeing to meet asylum seekers' needs effectively and efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financialisation has become central to contemporary liberal welfare states. The embedding of asset-based welfare and social investment strategies has emphasised focus on maximising the number of potential consumers, alongside reducing the welfare state's economic liabilities as much as possible. A central component of this is shifting risk away from the state, individualising risk. The efficacy of this process rests on individuals internalising this risk shift and accepting the premise that they are entirely responsible for their own economic wellbeing, regardless of the social conditions in which they live. In this article, I argue that the concept of 'resilience' facilitates this internalisation, which helps to explain its relatively rapid uptake in the social policy of welfare regimes such as the UK. 'Resilience' can be understood as a disciplinary mechanism that assists with both legitimising and enforcing the financialisation of everyday life through the welfare state. This article makes a theoretical contribution to the literature through providing the first substantive attempt to demonstrate the role resilience as a social policy strategy may play in maintaining the longevity of financialised welfare capitalism and furthering the financialisation of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review examined the literature on decision making by practitioners in the social professions involved in compulsory admission to mental health hospital in the UK. This aimed to find out(i) what processes shape social profession decision making about compulsory admission to mental health hospitals in practice? and (ii) what methods have informed studies in this area, and how have these shaped the current state of knowledge? Three main themes emerged are: professional positioning; characteristics of the person assessed; and organisational factors. The literature has approached answering this question by focusing on social professional jurisdictional perspectives, emphasising concern whether a social perspective is privileged in decision making. Lack of realistic options to avoid in-patient care underpins decisions to detain. The process involves a logistical challenge for the social profession. The social milieu of those assessed is associated with social vulnerability and social deprivation, highlighting the relevance for social work. Concerns about risk and a citizen's lack of mental capacity to make decisions about care are associated with decisions to detain. Implications for social work include a need for research that explores the institutional and social context of decision making. Finally, implementing supported decision making in social work practice is proposed as an imperative for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the mental health effects of lowering the UK's benefit cap in 2016. This policy limits the total amount a household with no‐one in full‐time employment can receive in social security. We treat the reduction in the cap as a natural policy experiment, comparing those at risk of being capped and those who were not, and examining the risk of experiencing poor mental health both before and after the cap was lowered. Drawing on data from ~900,000 individuals, we find that the prevalence of depression or anxiety among those at risk of being capped increased by 2.6 percentage points (95% confidence interval: 1.33–3.88) compared with those at a low risk of being capped. Capping social security may increase the risk of mental ill health and could have the unintended consequence of pushing out‐of‐work people even further away from the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of the accession of the UK in the development of the European Community's consumer policy. It will show that British accession boosted the development of EC consumer policy by influencing the European Commission's 1975 programme for consumer and information policy and by providing the Commission with political legitimation for developing its new consumer policy. Beyond accession in 1973, British membership in the EC contributed to the eventual prioritisation of an economic model of European consumer citizenship over competing approaches that favoured consumer protection in the EC from a social policy rationale. This historical examination reveals long term tensions between the UK's preference for market liberalisation and the creation of the common market, on the one hand, and attempts to safeguard national regulation, on the other – tensions which would resonate throughout the UK's membership of the EC/EU and beyond the area of consumer protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has revived discussions about universal basic income (UBI) as a potential crisis response. Yet despite favorable circumstances, little actual policy change in this area was observed. This article seeks to explain this absence of policy change and to reflect on the prospects for introducing UBI schemes after the pandemic in European democracies. I argue that public opinion on UBI provides few electoral incentives to push for social policy change. Using prepandemic data from 21 European democracies and pandemic data from the UK, I show that political support for UBI has been divided between different groups who advocate conflicting policy goals and who hold divergent views about existing welfare state arrangements. While support for UBI might have increased during the pandemic, the underlying political dividing lines are likely to have remained intact. Due to these enduring divisions and the stable support for existing social policy arrangements over an untested policy, the prospects for introducing UBI schemes in the post-pandemic world remain uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper provides new evidence on the cyclical behaviour of household labour income risk in Great Britain and the role of social insurance policy in mitigating against this source of income risk. To achieve this, we decompose stochastic idiosyncratic household income into its transitory and persistent components. We focus our analysis of income risk captured by the second to fourth moments of the probability distribution of shocks to the persistent component of income. We find that household labour income risk increases during contractions via changes in third and fourth central moments of persistent shocks to labour income, whereas the variance remains acyclical. We also find that economic policy has reduced the level of risk exposure and its increase during contractions via benefits rather than tax policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative study of the labour market and social policy measures introduced in light of the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom between March 2020 and January 2021. Its main aim is to understand whether the crisis response has changed the structures of the welfare states concerned. Focusing in particular on the differences regarding the crisis measures taken for individuals in 'standard employment' and 'non-standard workers' in each country, it argues that, although extensive temporary protection instruments were introduced for both groups during the crisis, these did not lead to an immediate convergence as regards these groups' social protection. Rather than changing the underlying structures of welfare systems, many of the measures in fact highlighted the specific vulnerabilities of large segments of Europe's labour markets. States have, however, granted social compensation at unprecedented levels, which could result in improved infrastructures and a clearer understanding of the responsibility of the welfare state in future emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to identify and gain insights into small and medium‐sized enterprises' (SMEs) rationales (why) for engaging in sustainable social and environmental practices (SEPs) that influence social and environmental policy and sustainability changes. Specifically, we depart from the predominately quantitative‐orientated SEPs literature by conducting in‐depth interviews and analysis of owners and managers of SMEs in the United Kingdom within a legitimacy theoretical framework. Our findings from a comprehensive number of interviewees show that SMEs employ a complex mix of both symbolic and substantive SEPs with the aim of enhancing the legitimacy and sustainability of their operations. The results emphasise the strengths of social engagement, reputation and image, environmental embeddedness, industry differentiation and education facilitators. In particular, the paper shows that legitimating strategies can have a dual purpose of being symbolic in nature but also inferring a substantive legitimacy claim. Evidence of SMEs maintaining their legitimacy position stretches further via either a moral and/or a pragmatic standpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers seeking to reform social security systems have frequently confronted a central tension: how to reconcile welfare retrenchment with the political challenges of implementing unpopular reforms. One way in which policymakers have responded to this tension is by repurposing existing institutions to serve new ends. We investigate the system of Universal Credit (UC) in the United Kingdom as an example of conversion. UC expands the reach of 'active citizenship' policies to a much larger population than ever before. However, far from producing uniform outcomes, UC's implementation has been marked by chaos and ultimately failure for individuals and communities. We argue that UC exemplifies a broader shift from social security to state-sanctioned social insecurity as policy reforms come to mimic the insecurities and risks commonly associated with the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dual or multiple earnership has been considered an important factor to prevent in-work poverty. The aim of this paper is to quantify the impact of second earnership on the risk of in-work poverty and the role of the tax-benefit system in moderating this risk. Our analysis refers to 2014 and employs EUROMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union and the United Kingdom. In order to assess the role of second earners in preventing in-work poverty we simulate a counterfactual scenario where second earners become unemployed. Our results show that the effect of net replacement rates (i.e. the ratio of household income before and after the transition of second earners to unemployment) on the probability of in-work poverty is negative and statistically significant, but in relative terms it appears to be small compared to the effects of individual labour market characteristics, such as low pay and part-time employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out proposals for the 'ideal' legal framework to address homelessness in Great Britain (GB), with potential lessons for other countries seeking to pursue rights-based approaches in this field. Exploiting the 'natural experiment' conditions generated by post-devolution divergence in key aspects of homelessness law, the paper draws on legal and social scientific learning from England, Scotland and Wales, as well as internationally, to formulate proposals for the optimal rights-based model. We argue that an ideal statutory homelessness system, situated in a less than ideal welfare and housing context, requires a balance to be struck between a robust set of individually-enforceable entitlements, on the one hand, and scope for pro-active, flexible approaches on the part of housing practitioners, on the other. The ten core principles we advance would therefore aim to combine the best of 'professional-centred' and 'rights-centred' social policy approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a renewed interest in professional and academic discourse in the reconceptualisation of social work with adults as a human rights-based approach. This is compatible with the social model of disability, which philosophically adult social workers make claims to align with. This was recently argued for when the Department of Health in England piloted a named social worker for adults with learning disabilities, whose behaviour challenged services. This paper discusses the conceptualisation of rights-based practice, its relevance and appropriateness for contemporary social work policy. Drawing on the recognition theory literature, it shall be shown that the meta-theory of rights-based practice may have relevance to contemporary social work practice with adults with learning disabilities. The paper shall also consider the renewed interest in normative reconstruction in social work practice and influencing factors such as drives towards individualism and marketisation. It will consider how these impacted on the adoption into UK policy of social work as a positive intervention to address structural inequalities, perhaps more accurately described as disablism, experienced by adults with learning disabilities, which ultimately is concluded to be a 'wicked problem'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK and Ireland responded to the rapid health and economic impacts of COVID‐19 by supporting incomes through job retention and job loss instruments, However distinct policy legacies, political and institutional differences between the two countries mean critical differences in both the nature and the relative weight placed on these instruments. The UK income support package was announced in one go and centred on a generous, newly created Job Retention Scheme as well as an enhanced Universal Credit for people who became unemployed. Ireland, by contrast, created a new, more generous social security payment, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, while a less prominent job retention scheme followed a week later. These initial decisions generated distinct policy dilemmas during a second round of policy changes, in which Ireland sought to reintegrate the more generous Pandemic Unemployment Payment into the mainstream welfare system, while UK sought to ensure that the Job Retention Scheme was only supporting retained (or "viable") jobs. A second wave of infections in October 2020, requiring new restrictions, led both nations to make substantial retreats from resolving these core policy dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has now been in place for over thirty years and is widely ratified. However, as the UNCRC is operationalised, a number of practical, conceptual and ethical issues have emerged. For example, questions arise concerning children's capacity and competence to make autonomous decisions, their involvement in dispute resolution and the relationship between the rights of children and those of their parents. Particular challenges arise in realising the rights of younger children and those with significant disabilities. The papers in this special edition explore these issues in relation to the UK and the wider international context, and also in different fields of social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To slow the transmission of COVID-19, countries around the world have implemented social distancing and stay-at-home policies—potentially leading people to rely more on household members for their sense of closeness and belonging. To understand the conditions under which people felt the most connected, we examined whether changes in overall feelings of social connection varied by household size and composition. In two pre-registered studies, undergraduates in Canada (NStudy 1 = 548) and adults primarily from the U.S. and U.K. (NStudy 2 = 336) reported their perceived social connection once before and once during the pandemic. In both studies, living with a partner robustly and uniquely buffered shifts in social connection during the first phases of the pandemic (βStudy 1 =.22, βStudy 2 =.16). In contrast, neither household size nor other aspects of household composition predicted changes in connection. We discuss implications for future social distancing policies that aim to balance physical health with psychological health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review assesses the state of scholarly literature on financial exclusion in OECD member countries to identify key concepts, gaps in the research, and types and sources of evidence to inform an agenda for advancing research, practice, and policy. The authors searched eight databases using 13 terms. The researchers extracted data for five concepts: financial inclusion conceptualization, financial inclusion measurement, financial inclusion mechanisms, financial exclusion conceptual, descriptive or empirical content, and financial capability conceptualization or measurement. This article reports on data coded only for financial exclusion conceptual, descriptive, or empirical content. The researchers identified N = 148 studies for inclusion. The majority of the studies were conceptual and were focused on either the USA or the UK. Aspects of financial exclusion that were well covered in the literature include the conceptualization, contributors, and impacts of financial exclusion. Less covered were measurement, prevention, and contemporary practice trends in financial exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For lawyers and legal scholars, legislation seems a known quantity—a relatively permanent, public expression of democratic processes in parliamentary democracies and of the rule of law. This 'knowable' character can however be misleading, particularly in the field of environmental law. This article examines why research into environmental legislation is challenging but critically important. A short history of UK environmental law provides salient examples of political stress and highly complex, unsettled, even unknowable, environmental legislation. Collective environmental problems demand legislative responses in shaping individual behaviours and guiding social policies—but knowing how to craft these responses and how to evaluate the resulting legislation is often uncharted legal territory. Navigating that legislative terrain is a vital task for legal scholars and practitioners, particularly to investigate the serious legal problems that can arise from its construction, including poor legibility, legal fragmentation, and concerns about compatibility with the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By taking two monarchy countries as examples, this paper discusses the differences and similarities of the policy process model and the systems model. The difference has first been discussed. Policies in the United Kingdom can be applied to the policy process model, due to the fact that step-by-step policymaking procedures can be observed during the policymaking process in the United Kingdom. The case shows that policies made by countries with democracy can also be analyzed by using the policy process model. On the contrary, policies in Saudi Arabia can be studied by using the systems model, due to the fact that unclear policymaking procedures can be witnessed in Saudi Arabia. This paper also discusses two similarities between the two models. They both emphasize on "policy cycle", as well as influenced by different kinds of environment. While social policy is always influenced by political ideology and system, and can be studied by different models, this paper concludes that the policymaking process is, all in all, a cycle and can be influenced by different environmental factors, no matter what political system a country has. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While social policy falls predominantly under national rather than European Union (EU) jurisdiction, there are nonetheless multiple ways in which social policy and social outcomes in EU member states have been affected by EU membership. This paper draws on existing evidence and analysis to review the consequences for UK social policy of the decision to leave the EU. We focus predominantly on the implications of the British government's pledge to 'take back control' of money, borders and laws. Our conclusion is that Brexit is likely to have negative effects on the quality of public services and, for some groups in particular, social rights, and that these effects are likely to be greater the more distant are the future trading and wider relationships between the UK and the EU27. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport is often framed as a panacea for social disharmony, especially within the context of marginalised youth populations, and is widely promoted as a mechanism through which a multiplicity of social policy objectives can be achieved. Yet while political rhetoric has long pointed towards sport's transformative abilities, the basis for such claims remains unproven. Theory-based approaches to evaluation have been posited as a useful device to explore the impact of specific initiatives and indicate where best practice may operate. The aim of this paper is to highlight one such theory-based framework that has been devised by practitioners in recent years around the operationalisation and evaluation of sporting interventions in criminal justice settings and which has come to be adopted as the dominant 'theory of change' across sport and criminal justice practitioner settings in the UK, but has, as yet, eluded academic scrutiny. To address this omission, the present discussion offers an in-depth analysis of this framework with the aim of discerning more clearly 'what might work' within sport and criminal justice contexts. In turn, the paper aims to stimulate further academic debate around the instrumental role of sport within criminal justice and the value of such frameworks for both policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries, new, broad, and normative "conceptions of society" gained prominence that represent fundamentally different discursive alternatives to the classical welfare state. We present two political projects that contain radical alternative conceptualizations of the classical welfare state, the "Big Society" in Britain and the "Participation Society" in the Netherlands, and contrast these with Norwegian developments, where no such a radical alternative conceptualization of the welfare state can be found. We show that the British and Dutch political projects were attempts to replace the welfare state, whereas there is no comparable big idea about a radical overhaul of the welfare state in Norway. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of a fundamental shift in welfare state reform, namely a radical reconsidering of the ideational and normative foundation that defines and underpins what the welfare state is or should be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responses to the Great Recession are varied across welfare states and gendered in their consequences. Combining gender, social policy and social movement scholarship, this paper investigates how the differential policy responses to the Financial Crisis in three European countries shaped gender-differences in anti-austerity demonstrations. We compare the involvement and characteristics of women and men in anti-austerity protests using data collected at street demonstrations (2010–2012). We conduct cross-national multi-level analysis of demonstrators from countries representing different gender regimes (Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Our results show that gender regimes have a significant impact on women's and men's involvement in anti-austerity protests. We thus make an important contribution to research on gender differences in participation in anti-austerity demonstrations post-Great Recession. Our comparison of women's and men's participation in anti-austerity street demonstrations suggests that at the country or regime level resources matter more than grievances, but that grievances matter at the individual level. This innovative paper links scholarship on gender regimes with research on protest participation. Resources and experiences of grievances are shaped by gender regimes which provide access to decision-making and social support. We reveal novel insights into the connection between gender regimes and demonstration participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusive Cities, a university led knowledge exchange initiative works in collaboration with six UK city administrations facilitating the development of their strategic and practical approach to the inclusion of newcomers in the city. The paper places this case study into the context of the UK's centralized asylum reception and resettlement policy framework, contrasting it with the increasing recognition of the importance of the local level in integration and inclusion policy and the intersections between these differing modes of governance and competencies. The paper explores emerging learning from the programme in relation to the leadership role of local government, its ability to act as a place shaper in relation to inclusion and integration and it role in convening partners through horizontal, place-based, networks as well as the ways in which this case study can contribute to wider learning on the role of knowledge exchange in facilitating social change and policy framing at the city level and learning on the multi-level governance of reception and integration. The paper explores how mutual knowledge exchange may create space for a broadening out of the policy framing in relation to reception – in particular how a 'newcomer' frame may support increased innovation at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to examine whether poverty dynamics changed in rural and urban Britain between 1991 and 2008, prior to the economic crisis. In addition to descriptive statistics, poverty exit and re-entry hazard models are estimated to assess the effect of household and personal characteristics, place of residence and participation in social policy programmes (benefits) on the time spent in poverty. Particular attention is paid to the election of the 'New Labour' government in 1997 and the impact of its social policy reforms. The analysis reveals that rural poverty is not a rare experience with half the population of rural Britain experiencing poverty at some point over this period. While the risk of poverty affected a much higher proportion of the rural population than previously thought, both rural and urban poverty fell from 1999 when Labour began to introduce its spending programme and reforms, with rural poverty falling further than urban. Our analysis suggests these policy reforms played an important role in rural dwellers' increasing mobility out of poverty and in decreasing mobility back into poverty during 1999–2007. • This paper examines changes in poverty dynamics in rural Britain during 1991–2008. • Half Britain's rural population experienced poverty at least once in this period. • Rural poverty fell faster than urban after Labour introduced social policy reforms. • Analysis suggests these policy reforms were instrumental in reducing rural poverty. • The findings challenge neglect of rural poverty in social policy and rural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personal, economic, and social costs of mental ill health are increasingly acknowledged by many governments and international organisations. Simultaneously, in high‐income nations, the reach of welfare conditionality has extended to encompass many people with mental health impairments as part of on‐going welfare reforms. This is particularly the case in the UK where, especially since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008, the rights and responsibilities of disabled people have been subject to contestation and redefinition. Following a review of the emergent international evidence on mental health and welfare conditionality, this paper explores two specific issues. First, the impacts of the application of welfare conditionality on benefit claimants with mental health impairments. Second, the effectiveness of welfare conditionality in supporting people with experience of mental ill health into paid work. In considering these questions, this paper presents original analysis of data generated in qualitative longitudinal interviews with 207 UK social security benefit recipients with experience of a range of mental health issues. The evidence suggests that welfare conditionality is largely ineffective in moving people with mental health impairments into, or closer to, paid work. Indeed, in many cases, it triggers negative health outcomes that make future employment less likely. It is concluded that the application of conditionality for people with mental health issues is inappropriate and should cease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a street‐level perspective on welfare conditionality as it was practiced in contracted‐out UK activation programs between 2008 and 2015. Drawing on observation and in‐depth interviews, the article illustrates the ways that behavioral conditionality provided street‐level workers with the means to intensify or moderate activation for particular claimants. Responding to arguments about the curtailment of street‐level discretion, the article argues that in the particular context of target‐driven, work‐first, and otherwise highly constrained services, discretion resided in the ability to intensify or moderate conditionality and its coercive potential—in decisions about how, on whom, and to what extent it would be applied. The article argues that attending to this form of discretion provides an alternative frame through which to view the differentiated treatment typically understood as "creaming" and "parking." In so doing, the article problematizes accounts that draw clear lines between calculative, normative, and dispositional forms of street‐level reason and practice. It shows how advisors' responses to the "street‐level calculus of choice" were articulated in terms of expectation, where attempts at future‐oriented calculation necessarily entailed making other forms of speculative and normative judgement about claimants and their situations. The article thus contributes to an understanding of both the causes and meaning of differentiated treatment in conditional welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A powerful dystopian imaginary dominates political and cultural representations of Britain's postwar tower blocks, which continue to be linked to social dysfunction and alienation despite extensive empirical research that challenges such claims. This article asks what contested declarations of failure "do" by examining how "tower block failure" is discursively deployed by placemaking professionals--planners, architects, housing managers, regeneration practitioners--engaged in the construction of a "model" mixed-tenure neighborhood in London's Olympic Park. Examining how the aesthetic figure of the "failed" high-rise housing estate is configured in relation to the normative models of citizenship and community that infuse social and spatial policy, I argue "failure" is entangled with a speculative, future-oriented economy of risk management, which refracts wider questions about the nonobvious forms that power takes in the neoliberal city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, private renting has undergone a major revival in the UK, more than doubling its share within the housing system. Young adults increasingly remain in the sector into their 30s, giving rise to the term 'Generation Rent'. Using data from the UK's Family Resources Survey, this article shows how reliance on the sector varies by poverty status, particularly for young adults and children. In 2017/18, 42 per cent of adults under 40 in low-income poverty lived in private renting, compared with just 26 per cent of non-poor. This is almost double the proportion of 20 years earlier. Private renting is now home to more poor adults under 40 than owner occupation and social renting combined. In addition, one in three children in poverty (36 per cent) now lives in private renting, three times the level of 20 years ago. For both adults and children, rates are even higher in London and the South. Although rates of increase have slowed in recent years, this dramatic shift in the housing circumstances of those in poverty has a number of implications for housing and social policy which have not yet been sufficiently recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Housing is one of the defining social policy issues of our time. There is growing recognition that the housing market is failing and causing widespread damage, but alternatives struggle against deep-rooted capitalist norms and the perceived shortcomings of previous attempts to promote non-market housing. However, despite being a huge concern for millions of people, housing tends to operate below the mainstream political radar, as was demonstrated again by the December 2019 UK general election. This paper argues that a new agenda for public housing is gaining support and can overcome these obstacles, particularly by aligning itself to shifting lifestyle patterns and the urgency of combating climate change, thus enacting a true Right to the City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a time when the belief in a welfare crisis is being connected to a so‐called "migration crisis", in particular in the United Kingdom, it is important to look at the lived experiences of mobile EU citizens and the influence of transnational social protection practices. The article introduces the concept of a "migration‐welfare corridor" – as opposed to the widespread welfare magnet hypothesis – taking into consideration the role of welfare systems in origin and destination countries at different stages of a migrant's life cycle, the changing nature of the welfare habitus as well as migrants' attitudes towards what can be defined as welfare chauvinism. Looking specifically at the case of Spanish and Polish migrants in the UK who have reacted to this protracted environment of deterrence, particularly in respect to their welfare rights, this paper discusses several dimensions that should be taken into consideration when analyzing transnational social protection practices from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on a social reproduction approach to examine how debt informed the development of UK welfare provision. A brief history of the Public Works Loan Board introduces its centrality not only in the delivering of welfare institutions but also in the typographies and social values that informed welfare policies. The depletion of social care services today may be evident in the extensive use of debt to deliver social policy across the United Kingdom. However, in the past access to publicly backed borrowing enabled local authorities to deliver social rights that had been legislated for by central government. We can therefore see that it was not debt but its democratic accountability that played a central role in the changing fortunes of the UK's welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child maltreatment is a highly controversial area of social policy, but little is known about its prevalence in the general population. This paper explains why the NSPCC commissioned a national survey, discusses the ethical and methodological issues that researchers faced, describes findings and considers the implications for child protection policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article puts contemporary debates about the relationship between immigration policy and the welfare state in historical perspective. Relying on new historical data, the article examines the relationship between immigration policy and social policy in Western Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the modern welfare state emerged. Germany already had comparably strict immigration policies when the German Empire introduced the world's first national social insurances in the 1880s. Denmark, another early social-policy adopter, also pursued restrictive immigration policies early on. Almost all other countries in Western Europe started out with more liberal immigration policies than Germany's and Denmark's, but then adopted more restrictive immigration policies and more generous social policies concurrently. There are two exceptions, Belgium and Italy, which are discussed in the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on volunteering has paid insufficient attention to how experiences of volunteering in the past affect current and future participation. The importance of this relationship is emphasized by the introduction of public policies across the globe focusing on national service programmes and community service in schools with the underlying intention of inducing ongoing pro-social behavior. Using the UK longitudinal data, this article analyzes the prevalence of persistent individual volunteering behavior over the life-course, and most importantly, the extent to which past volunteering has a causal influence on current and future participation. Strong evidence of this relationship is provided, suggesting that volunteer-stimulating policy measures—such as the UK government's National Citizen Service initiative for all young people between 16 and 17 years of age—will have a more profound effect because they do not only affect current volunteering activities but are also likely to induce a permanent change in favor of volunteering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]