Making Social Policy count in the political debate
In the run up to the next General Election scheduled to be held on 7 May 2015 it is important for the SPA to ensure that social policy issues are at the forefront of political debate in the UK. We therefore invite contributions for inclusion in our second report in the series, ‘In Defence of Welfare’ (IDOW-II), which we are planning to launch in February 2015.

Building on the influential work we did for IDOW-I (see http://www.social-policy.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/idow.pdf) this new report will be published online only which has the obvious advantage of being substantially cheaper, but the online format will enable us to accommodate more contributions and should allow us to generate publicity and media interest around individual contributions more easily.

What has been achieved over the last parliament and where next for Social Policy?
We are particularly interested in ‘auditing’ the Coalition government’s welfare reforms over this parliament, their impacts, both positive and negative, while looking ahead towards challenges and policy alternatives for promoting public welfare and social well-being in the new term.

We are not seeking to commission new or original research, the academy produces a huge amount of social policy related research each year, rather we are looking to make full use of existing scholarship on key social issues from our community of social policy experts, albeit republished on the SPA website in summary form for the attention of policymakers, the public and the media. Our thinking here is a short review article (rather than a full length article) of approximately 1,500 words.

Want to get involved in the debate?
SPA members are invited to email us with their expressions of interest, either volunteering for one of the topics listed below or suggesting their own they think we should be included in this new edition. Expressions of interested should take the form of a summary Abstract proposal of not more than 200 words to be emailed to Anne Brunton (SPA Treasurer): [log in to unmask]  by Friday 24th October.

All submissions will be reviewed by our team, the IDOW-II working group, and we will notify authors of the outcome by Monday 3rd November. We will work alongside authors to ensure a common format and general level of consistency running through the report in preparation for the launch in February 2015, and, importantly, we will be using all of our networks and media accounts to ensure our voices are heard in the coming political debate over welfare. IDOW-I made national headlines and individual authors were approached to write further pieces, let’s use this opportunity to make Social Policy part of the political debate.

Naturally, we cannot hope for complete coverage of ‘social policy’ topics in the new edition of IDOW-II, but equally we hope that this more organic approach and the new format will help us to ensure important topics are not overlooked. In order to ensure some continuity with our first report IDOW-I we will also be approaching some individuals directly for their contributions.

 
Potential topics
This list is indicative of potential areas of policy and topics, but it is by no means exhaustive, so please feel free to email us your suggestions:
•	The purpose of the welfare state or why we can't afford not to have one
•	Welfare and wellbeing - inextricably linked
•	A comparative piece on austerity measures in other countries
•	Solidarity, risk and who can really buy themselves out of the welfare state
•	Impact of austerity measures so far and the projected impact of those anticipated/ announced
•	The return of the benefit scrounger
•	Reserved for the rich? The effects of the benefits cap 
•	Working hours and contracts, i.e. involuntary part-time work and zero hours
•	What is left of/ for local government?
•	Raising the minimum tax threshold - why it doesn't help hard-working families (on low income)
•	Big re-organisations such as NHS and Universal Credit
•	Room for yet more efficiency savings: department cuts to date and where future cuts are likely to fall
•	Devolution and welfare
•	Financing later life - pensions, care and the demographic time bomb
•	The big society agenda/third sector
•	Disability benefit cuts
•	Education/Higher education 
•	Housing
•	Health/public health
•	Adult social care
•	Child poverty and well-being
•	Criminal justice
•	The environment
•	Credit Unions and payday loans
•	Social justice
•	Food banks.

IDOW-2 working group: Ben Baumberg, Anne Brunton, Chris Deeming, Liam Foster and Tina Haux

The SPA will also be holding its ‘SPA Policy Round Table Series’ to raise the profile of Social Policy and Social Policy issues in the UK, keep an eye on our website for details and further announcements [http://www.social-policy.org.uk/what-we-do/events/]