Welfare reform in the United Kingdom 2010-16: Expectations, outcomes, and local impacts

Abstract This article argues that shared problematizations—shared political and public ways of thinking—legitimize policies and their outcomes. To support this argument, it examines the legitimation of gendered welfare reform in the recent U.K. context. Drawing on focus groups with the public, it provides evidence that the public’s problematization of welfare, specifically that reform was necessary to “make work pay” and “restore fairness”, aligned with that of politicians. It argues that the assumptions and silences underpinning this shared problematization, especially silences relating to the value and necessity of care, have allowed for welfare policies that have disadvantaged women.

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Mind the gaps: Universal Credit and self-employment in the United Kingdom

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice ◽

10.1332/175982718x15451303785398 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 199-217

Author(s):

Kevin Caraher ◽

Enrico Reuter

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Social Protection ◽

The Self ◽

Labour Markets ◽

Self Employment ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Social ◽

The Impact ◽

Roll Out

Self-employment in the United Kingdom rose steadily until 2017, as part of wider changes in labour markets towards more flexible and potentially more vulnerable forms of employment. At the same time, welfare reform has continued under the current and previous governments, with a further expansion of conditionality with respect to benefit recipients. The incremental introduction of Universal Credit is likely to intensify the subjection of vulnerable categories of the self-employed to welfare conditionalities and to thus accentuate the ambivalent nature of self-employment. This article analyses the impact of Universal Credit on the self-employed by first discussing elements of precarity faced by the self-employed, and, second, by exploring the consequences of the roll-out of Universal Credit for those self-employed people who are reliant on the social protection system.

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Welfare conditionality and social marginality: The folly of the tutelary state?

Critical Social Policy ◽

10.1177/0261018317753088 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 38 (4) ◽

pp. 771-791 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Del Roy Fletcher ◽

John Flint

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Contemporary Evolution ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Poor ◽

Support Mechanisms ◽

Therapeutic State ◽

Social Marginality ◽

To Receive ◽

Depth Interviews

In a contemporary evolution of the tutelary state, welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been characterised by moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning. This is influenced by the attributing responsibility for poverty and unemployment to the behaviour of marginalised individuals. Mead (1992) has argued that the poor are dependants who ought to receive support on condition of certain restrictions imposed by a protective state that will incentivise engagement with support mechanisms. This article examines how the contemporary tutelary and therapeutic state has responded to new forms of social marginality. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with welfare claimants with an offending background in England and Scotland, the article examines their encounters with the welfare system and argues that alienation, rather than engagement with support, increasingly characterises their experiences.

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A ?third way? in welfare reform? Evidence from the United Kingdom

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management ◽

10.1002/pam.20046 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 765-788 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

John Hills ◽

Jane Waldfogel

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Third Way ◽

The United Kingdom

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Lessons for welfare reform from the United Kingdom

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v7i2.4377 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 7 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Patrick Nolan

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

New Zealand ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Political Agenda ◽

Final Report ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Government ◽

The Uk ◽

The Cost ◽

Welfare Reforms

Welfare reform is high on the political agenda in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In New Zealand an independent welfare working group has released its final report and the prime minister, John Key, signalled that the government would consider its findings. In the United Kingdom the secretary of state for work and pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has outlined plans to radically reduce the cost and complexity of working-aged benefits and to increase the involvement of the private sector in the delivery of services. This article compares welfare reform in New Zealand and the UK. Such a comparison is of interest given the similar social policy traditions in the two countries and similarities and differences in the approaches taken to their welfare reforms. There are also important lessons – on what to do and on what not to do – that the countries can learn from each other.

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Public service interpreting and the politics of entitlement for new entrants to the United Kingdom

Journal of Language and Politics ◽

10.1075/jlp.11.2.02tip ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 185-206 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Rebecca Tipton

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Public Service ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

New Entrants ◽

Media Reports ◽

The Relationship

This article examines the function and perception of public service interpreting provision in contemporary Britain against the backdrop of conflict that has emerged in media and political circles as a result of the spiralling cost of such provision. Using an approach based on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2000, 2003; Fowler 1991) the article begins by examining a corpus of media reports in which the twin societal aims of community cohesion and integration are often seen as being hindered by translation and interpreting services. The issue of whether interpreting services play or should play a role in integration and cohesion amidst the ongoing processes of welfare reform in Britain is then examined and contrasted with a broader understanding of welfare that foregrounds the role of public service interpreting in the processes of resettlement and socialisation. The discussion also considers the relationship between public service interpreting, welfare reform and status of language services as a welfare entitlement for new entrants.

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Public Policy as Social Innovation

Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198830511.003.0012 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 300-338

Author(s):

Alex Nicholls ◽

Daniel Edmiston

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Social Impact ◽

Social Innovation ◽

Policy Actors ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Improved Outcomes ◽

The Social ◽

Social Impact Bonds

This chapter explores in detail the evolution of social impact bonds (SIBs) in the United Kingdom as an example of social policy as social innovation. Specifically, it presents new analysis of three empirical cases in the United Kingdom. The chapter examines some key claims made by policy actors concerning SIBs as social innovation and welfare reform, specifically that they offer improved outcomes by means of innovating hybrid collaboration. The relevance of such claims in the context of addressing sites of marginalization is also discussed with reference to theoretical approaches from the Social Grid model.

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