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Dear all, the latest blog in our 50-4-50 series is now published. No 15: Universal Credit, means-testing and social security by Jane Millar Fifty years ago, in 1967, means-testing was just a small part of our social security system. Supplementary Benefit had been introduced in 1966 (replacing National Assistance) but was as much, if not more, about topping up pensioner incomes as it was about working-age people. It was a back-up, a safety net, for people without access to national insurance benefits. There was no housing benefit, no council tax benefits, and no in-work benefits. This was still the Beveridge vision of a system of ‘benefits in return for contributions’, in which means-testing was a residual element. Fifty years on, things could hardly be more different. Means-tested benefits are now the mainstream for people of working age while insurance benefits are the residual. And Universal Credit is one huge means-tested monster, bringing together six major benefits — income-based Jobseekers Allowance, income-based Employment Support Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit, and Child Tax Credit. There are currently just about half a million recipients of Universal Credit, but once fully in place, there will be about seven million households in receipt. This is indeed means-testing on a massive scale, no longer a safety net to catch those in need and without access to contributory benefits, more a first port of call for as up to one in three of the UK’s 20.7 million working-age households... Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/universal-credit-means-testing/ Previous blogs in the series: ============================== No 14: No 14: Regional social policy: an idea whose time has come by Nicola Yeates For those of us in ‘Brexit Britain’, it is sometimes easy to forget that the planned withdrawal of the UK from the EU is a countervailing global trend. Deeper regional cooperation and integration are favoured around the world as a fruitful response to a range of seemingly intractable social issues, promising substantial development dividends. Across South America, Africa, Asia and Europe the potential development dividends of strengthening regional social regulation, regional social standards, regional social rights and regional redistribution have gained significant ground... Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/regional-social-policy/ ============================== No 13: Beneficent expert or turbulent priest? The ambiguous role of the Social Policy academic by Hartley Dean The role of the Social Policy academic has in several respects always been ambiguous. The object of her scholarship may variously be regarded as a discrete discipline or as a multi- or inter-disciplinary subject area; as a primarily applied or as a critically theoretical field of social scientific study; or, more sceptically, as ‘a mixture of down-to-earth pragmatism and evangelical moral uplift’. In practice, such scholarship can, or has, entailed all of those things. In 2010, for a piece in the Social Policy Association’s newsletter, I wrote the following: 'Social Policy scholars have at times been close to the policy-making establishment. At othersthey have been excluded. However, it is a cardinal principle that academics should never become the complaisant courtiers of the establishment, but must remain free to be troublesome priests' ... Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/social- policy-academic/ ============================== No 12: The neglect of ageing by Alan Walker Social policy has neglected ageing and, as a result, it has vacated what should have been a leading role in responding to one of the biggest challenges facing the world. This neglect has also reinforced, rather than critically demolished, the official national and global policy orthodoxy which concentrates on old age, not ageing, and assumes that later life is a ‘natural’ period of decline. This has contributed, in turn, to the widespread tendency, seen most poisonously in the 2017 General Election, to regard rising social care costs as the inevitable result of population ageing. Rather than asking if the projected demand for social care (i.e. extrapolations from the present) is inevitable and, if not, what policy approaches might mitigate it, the usual response across the political spectrum is to focus instead only on the supply side: funding. This political myopia entails substantial Exchequer costs but, more importantly, does nothing to address the human consequences of unnecessary disability... Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/neglect- ageing/ ============================== No 11: Why welfare is a common good by Pete Alcock My summer reading this year included a new biography of Clement Attlee, leader of the post-war Labour administration generally credited with the introduction of the British welfare state — Citizen Clem by John Bew. He makes the point that Attlee himself, though an outstanding party leader and Prime Minister, was very much aware that what made his government so popular (they won a landslide victory in 1945) and their reforms so successful was the changed political and ideological mood in the country. After the tremendous shared effort needed to win the war, there was support for further collective action to make the peace a worthwhile achievement for all. The welfare state reforms of 1945-51 still provide the backbone of our social services today, most notably the National Health Service (NHS). They were based on universal principles (all should benefit) and collective investment (all should contribute, for instance through National Insurance). However, since then, they have been much challenged and much changed. These collective principles have been undermined by the weakening of universalism through the growing impact of means-testing and the individualisation and privatisation of services such as housing, pensions and social care... Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/welfare-common-good/ ============================== No. 10. Where Next for Food Bank Use. By Kayleigh Garthwaite Tuesday 28 November was the launch of the London Evening Standard’s Christmas appeal, ‘Help a Hungry Child’. Pages 8, 9, 10 and 11 were devoted to the issue. The Felix Project is a partner in the campaign, an organisation which “collects fresh, nutritious food that cannot be sold” and the food is then given to “charities so they can provide healthy meals and help the most vulnerable in our society”. London Evening Standard editor George Osborne, without a hint of irony, tweeted: Today’s @EveningStandard: we launch our Xmas appeal, with @felixprojectuk charity, to tackle hunger in the capital – with your support we aim to reach 120 schools & 50,000 children. In the editorial, Osborne pleads: “It is dispiriting that in a prosperous, civilised capital so many children do not eat decent, nutritious meals”. …. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/foodban k-use/] ============================== No 9: Brave new world or second dark age? Social policy and social innovation By Stephen Sinclair "It has been estimated that almost half of the jobs in the US could be made redundant by automation and new technologies in the near future. The idea that modern economies undergo successive waves of innovation is not new. Conventional economic thinking holds that while these developments might create transitional problems, ultimately they increase productivity and improve living standards. However, evidence suggests that recent and emerging technological developments may challenge this confidence. Firstly, while overall productivity has grown in the last twenty years, despite the Great Recession, the incomes of many in the Developed World have stagnated. Secondly, unlike previous generations of innovation, new technologies are not creating jobs at a rate to employ those they replace: occupations in emerging economic sectors accounted for 8.2 per cent of new jobs created in the 1980s but only 0.5 per cent in the 2000s ... Labour market changes are only one of many challenges confronting social welfare systems. The litany is well known: population ageing; more diverse and fluid households; widening inequality; global warming and resource depletion, and an international migration crisis. Things might not be falling apart (yet), but the challenges confronting conventional welfare provision cannot be ignored. Simply doing more of the same is not a sustainable option. Welfare systems need imaginative, long-term and large-scale responses to address chronic social problems and emerging demands. Many advocate social innovation (SI) in response to these challenges.” …. [Continue reading at: http://www.social-policy.o rg.uk/50-for-50/social-innovation/] ============================== No 8: Universal Credit: A benefits system to increase debt By Steve Iafrati "Narratives explaining poverty as caused by personal failings and poor decisions are nothing new. The characterisation of the likeable but foolish Mr Micawber in Dickens’ David Copperfield has given way to a politicised narrative of ‘sleeping off a life on benefits’ and welfare dependency. Universal Credit, a new benefits system paid in arrears, has been presented to address such problems by encouraging greater personal budgeting and responsibility. But with initial evidence showing Universal Credit leading to more debt, it seems that the program may be more of a problem than a solution. As welfare slowly returns to Victorian values of changing people’s behaviour, it may be that Mr Micawber’s experience of poverty and debt will become a reality for increasing numbers of people.” …. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/universal-credit-debt/] ============================== No 7: Brexit won’t work without a new welfare state By Peter Taylor-Gooby "We stand on the brink of a new golden age of the welfare state. As the UK staggers towards Brexit, it is becoming increasingly obvious that separation from the EU, however accomplished, will confront our economy and our government with challenges we cannot overcome without more welfare spending. We know that Britain suffers from a weak balance of trade (a deficit of nearly 25 per cent) and low productivity. German workers are roughly 30 per cent more productive on average in GDP terms than are British workers, while French workers are some 25 per cent more productive, according to ONS data. We have had little success in recent years in addressing either problem. A post-Brexit UK will have to find ways to compete successfully in international markets. We will, in any case, need to generate extra resources to maintain living standards as the less productive elderly proportion of our population rises. It is not altogether clear how we will achieve success, but it seems increasingly likely that a vigorous and innovative social policy will be a key element in any programme to attain it.” …. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/brexit-welfare-state/] ============================== No 6: 'Back to the future? Reclaiming the social after Grenfell Tower'. John Clarke. The Grenfell Tower fire has shaken many aspects of the prevailing British political culture. Most strikingly for me, in the aftermath of the fire, Tottenham MP David Lammy gave an interview in which he argued that ‘people want the social back’. This is a potent image, but what might it mean? And what might be the implications for social policy? Lammy was pointing to the wilful erosion, if not eradication, of the social fabric of life in British cities — in particular, to the ways in which supportive social relationships were previously interwoven with, and sustained by, public services and the welfare state. How might we go about bringing the ‘social back’? …. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/reclaiming-social/] ================================= No 5: 'Where do we go from here? Fifty years on from the ‘War on Poverty’'. Stephen Crossley In 1967, Martin Luther King began work on a book titled ‘Where Do We Go from Here?’, in which he argued that the choice was between ‘chaos or community’. The book, published in 1968, discussed issues of race, civil rights, democracy, education and poverty. Dr King argued that the ‘war on poverty’, announced by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, was unlikely to succeed for a number of reasons. He argued that the budget for the programme was so limited that ‘it could not launch a good skirmish against poverty, much less a full-scale war’ and that the programme’s efforts to solve poverty did so by ‘first trying to solve something else’. He also argued that ‘fragmented and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor’. In a speech in 1967, Dr King linked the decline in funding for the Community Action Program with the increased focus on, and resources required by the Vietnam war…. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/war-poverty/] ================================= No 4: 'As if: After Manchester, London Bridge, Grenfell Tower’. Fiona Williams For weeks I’ve been grabbed by the throat: deep sobs that hijack the roll out of sleep, gasping for air as if those dying were mine as if the mums and the daughters were mine as if I’d gone blind …. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/as-if/] ================================= No 3: 'Why the two-child policy is the worst social security policy ever’. Jonathan Bradshaw What is the worst social security policy ever? There are many competitors for this accolade in our history — less eligibility in 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the 1934 Unemployment Assistance Board household means-test, the 1991 Child Support Act, the 2017 lower benefit cap and, probably forthcoming, Universal Credit. But the two-child policy is just morally odious. The policy restricts help through means-tested family benefits to two children only and affects the child tax credit payable for all third or subsequent children born after April 2017 and all new claims for universal credit, whenever they were born. In doing so, the two-child policy breaks the fundamental link between need and the provision of minimum support and implies that some children, by virtue of their birth order, are less deserving of support. It is a very large direct cut to the living standards of the poorest families of up to £2780 per child, per year……. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/two-child-policy/] ================================= No. 2: ‘Making hope possible rather than despair convincing’: The first 50 years of the Social Policy Association’. Adrian Sinfield Social policy matters. Rigorous, independent, robust study of it matters, as does teaching the next generation to be more policy-literate. At 50 the SPA is as important to all of these as ever, helping to develop, integrate and safeguard the subject and its members and contribute to better social policies. The SPA’s success lies in balancing a trade union role with a strong commitment to the wider society. It brings members together for intellectual stimulation and exchange. It promotes and stimulates teaching, research and its dissemination. It contributes to the wider policy debate and has long encouraged ‘impact’ — well before the current commonplace use. It helps to develop, integrate and safeguard the subject and its members working in it…. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/50-years-social-policy/] ================================= No 1: 'The power of hope in the face of injustice: reflections on Grenfell’. Ruth Lister Four weeks prior to the Social Policy Association’s 50th anniversary AGM an unknown number of people – at least 80 – lost their lives and many more their homes in the horrendous fire which swept through Grenfell Tower. The causes can be traced back to the actions and non-actions of people with power over the lives of the powerless. Photos show how the burnt out hulk of Grenfell Tower overshadows the lives of local residents like a terrible spectre. It also, quite rightly, overshadows public life in the UK. What has been striking is how, across the political spectrum, it has been recognised as ‘a metaphor for inequality in Britain’, quoting Conservative commentator, Fraser Nelson. Likewise, the Financial Times observed that ‘the tower’s blackened silhouette, looming above London’s most affluent enclaves, is rapidly becoming a symbol of the divisions in British society. The tragedy is fuelling resentment over inequality and the impact of austerity on the poorest’. Even callers to the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 used the language of social class to make sense of what had happened…. [Continue reading at http://www.social-policy.or g.uk/50-for-50/power-hope-injustice/] -- Nicki Lisa Cole, PhD Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute-York <https://www.york.ac.uk/sei/> and in Social Policy and Socia <https://www.york.ac.uk/spsw/staff/nickicole/>l Work <https://www.york.ac.uk/spsw/staff/nickicole/> University of York