Question

in no more than 300 words describe the contemporary frameworks and influences that underpin social policy

Answer 1

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, social policy and the welfare state in the UK

have been undergoing a period of extraordinary change. After a decade of welfare state expansion

to 2007, with particularly high spending on health and education, Labour’s response to the financial

crash was to increase public spending in a counter-recessionary move. Since the change of

government in 2010, this strategy has been overturned, replaced by extensive cuts to public

spending, arguably the largest since 1921-4, and major structural reforms in many areas of socialIn combination, these economic and political changes can be expected to have substantial impacts

on the distribution of incomes and wealth and the extent and distribution of state provision. The

Social Policy in a Cold Climate research programme (SPCC) aims to produce an overall

assessment of these changes, with a particular focus on their impacts on the distribution of welfare

outcomes, poverty, inequality and spatial differences.

We approach this from a number of different angles. One is simply to document changes in the

distribution of economic outcomes, such as incomes, wealth, and earnings, over time. Whose

incomes have grown or shrunk? Which gaps have widened or narrowed? When did changes

occur in relation to the cycle of boom, recession and recovery, and in relation to the change of

government and the introduction of key policies? From this, we can derive hypotheses about what

might have caused any changes observed. We look at the period from 2007 to 2014, including

assessments of change at different times within this period and at continuity and change with

earlier periods. We look at the changing relative position of different groups: men and women;

disabled and non disabled people; people of different age groups, ethnic backgrounds, regions and

neighbourhood types. We also look at changes within groups, combining characteristics such as

age, gender and ethnicity to explore, for example, whether changes in the overall employment

rates of a particular ethnic group are accounted for by gains or losses affecting women or men,

older or younger workers.

Another approach is to model the effects of policies by holding other factors constant. For

example, what would the incomes of certain groups of people and households have looked like if

the Coalition had pursued the Labour government’s policies on taxes and benefits through the

recession, rather than making the changes it has? We will draw on published evaluations and

reports as well as conducting some further analysis ourselves.

A third approach is to start from the policies enacted: to describe what was done, when and with

what stated purpose, and to assess both policy delivery and changes in outcomes in relation to the

goals government set. We cover a wide range of social policies, although not social policy in its

entirety: taxes, social security and pensions, health and social care, education, early years

policies (including those on child poverty and child care as well early education), and

neighbourhood renewal. We begin with a series of papers, all forthcoming in July 2013, on the

policies and achievements of the Labour government from 1997-2010, before doing the same for

the Coalition from 2010 onwards.

It is with this aspect of the programme that this paper is concerned. As a heuristic device to help

us cover each policy systematically, we adopt a simple analytical framework starting with

identifying broad policy aims for that particular policy area, then documenting actual policies, then

recording the resources expended, the inputs and outputs produced, and changes in measurable

outcomes . This provides a structure for each individual paper. We set it out here in full

for readers of these papers, who may be curious to know We explain below in more detail than we have room for in the individual papers how we  

are defining the terms used and drawing the boundaries of our analysis.The Framework

We start with the overall goals and broad aims of the specific policy area under consideration.

For example, in education, the overall goals of a government might be to have a better educated

population in order to enhance economic competitiveness, and to close gaps between people from

different backgrounds in order to increase social mobility. By starting at this level, we aim to

address the question “what did the government set out to achieve?”. We draw on policy texts:

election manifestos, speeches, internal reviews, white papers, and legislation to discern these

goals and to examine shifts over time within a government’s period of office, as well as apparent

contradictions and tensions and their resolution.

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