Themed Section on the Policy Process and Social Policy

Despite the frequent comparisons and discussions of continuity between the Conservatives' social policies and those of New Labour, it is certainly true that the mechanisms which each has used to develop and implement social policy have been rhetorically, and often practically, different. Under the Conservatives the emphasis on markets and marketisation, with the centrality of the ‘consumer’, was reflected in social policy including through devices such as privatisation, compulsory competitive tendering, the creation of internal markets, managerialism and the use of ‘Next Steps’ agencies for delivery. New Labour's approach has made familiar terms such as ‘joined-up’ government, ‘evidence-based’ policy, ‘partnership’, ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal’. And, whatever might be said about their social policies, New Labour have shown a degree of radicalism in their governmental and constitutional reforms, most notably perhaps through devolution to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the passing of the Human Rights Act. At the same time, the EU has been developing as a political and decision-making entity with an emerging social dimension, that has, as Duncan argues here, the potential for some impact on UK social policy.