Series: Social Policy Review
Published in association with the Social Policy Association.
Social Policy Review draws together internationally renown contributors to provide students, academics and all those interested in welfare issues with critical analyses of progress and change in areas of major interest during the past year.
Social Policy Review
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Antisocial behaviour (ASB) interventions were designed to prevent, manage and punish behaviour with the capability of causing nuisance and annoyance, ranging from untidy gardens and noise nuisance to physical violence and drug dealing (Burney, 2005; Mackenzie et al, 2010). While stakeholders arguably take a ‘what works’ approach to interventions (Brown, 2013), the impact of ASB interventions on alleged perpetrators themselves has been less explored in academic debate. Drawing on a theoretical framework of intersectional vulnerability to understand the content of qualitative longitudinal interviews with alleged perpetrators of ASB and contextual interviews with ASB professionals, it could be argued that ASB interventions may change behaviour, heighten vulnerability or sometimes result in both changed behaviour and heightened vulnerability. Perpetrators appear to routinely be asked to change behaviour linked to their vulnerability, without support being provided alongside ASB interventions. Additionally, tenants’ vulnerability can be heightened by changing their behaviour as required, with alleged perpetrators facing a difficult choice between making the changes required by their housing provider to prevent further ASB interventions and subsequently increasing their vulnerability or not changing their behaviour and risking further ASB interventions, potentially impacting their housing security. Overall, it appears that rather than a nuanced understanding of vulnerability and subsequent support provision (alongside ASB interventions if necessary), the focus on behaviour change through ASB interventions reported by housing providers and tenants can heighten vulnerability for already-vulnerable tenants and ask them to make impossible choices where all outcomes could lead to increased hardship for them and their households.
This chapter evaluates the social, human and economic implications of resettlement policies in the UK, focusing on the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the Hong Kong British Nationals (Overseas) visa scheme, and the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Through a comprehensive review of these policies, this chapter seeks to analyse the synergies, conflicts and impact of these initiatives. Rizvi and Lingard provide a framework to understand how policy evolves over time and how it is shaped by different perspectives. This framework is used to examine three key dimensions: contextual issues; policy and textual issues; and implementation and outcomes issues. By considering these three policies, this chapter aims to provide insight into the different approaches that support refugees and migrants and to examine the viability of the models that they adopt. The chapter considers the way in which bespoke resettlement schemes counter dominant trends in UK immigration policy by providing expeditated rights to specific groups but are part of a broader move away from the international protection of refugees.
Childcare provision has become one of the key battlegrounds for the next general election in the UK. Childcare in the UK remains expensive compared to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, and recruitment and retention of the childcare workforce are particularly challenging. The current Conservative government announced in the 2023 Spring Budget that it would substantially extend childcare for younger children, though there are doubts over the ability to deliver the expansion. However, many voices are calling for a more radical overhaul of childcare provision in the UK. This chapter will bring together the existing evidence about the state of childcare provision in the UK before comparing and critically discussing the rationale and content of the proposals put forward by political parties, think tanks and experts for the future of childcare provision in the UK.
Elected partially upon the political premise of the Levelling Up agenda in 2019, the Conservative government promised to spread opportunity and wealth more evenly across the UK. The subsequent policy programme outlined in the 2022 Levelling Up White Paper identified how well-remunerated employment opportunities, household income, health and education outcomes, and local pride and living standards, among other issues, are more geographically unequal in the UK than in most other comparable nations. Levelling up these entrenched geographical imbalances, especially in ‘left behind’ places, represents a long-running and complex policy problem. Utilising 25 interviews with residents from Redcar and Cleveland in Teesside, this chapter explores their lived experiences in one of the most ‘left behind’ localities in the UK and how these relate to the interlinked challenges that the Levelling Up agenda is seeking to address. The findings highlight the enduring significance of well-paid industrial employment and a range of social problems in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods, including the prevalence of crime. The chapter then discusses the participants’ lived experiences in the context of the Levelling Up agenda, with many people in key Levelling Up localities, including Redcar and Cleveland, believing that their area has not improved since the policy initiative was announced. As political attention has shifted away from the Levelling Up agenda and towards controlling inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, we conclude that the Levelling Up agenda is likely to represent a missed policy opportunity to address the UK’s place-based inequalities and spread social and economic opportunity more evenly across the UK.
In response to persistent crises, the European Union polity has strengthened its social policymaking, intensifying active labour market policies. In this regard, this chapter delves into the implementation of the Youth Guarantee in Italy and Austria, considering Milan and Vienna as case studies, to highlight how the transition of European policies to the national and local levels involves diverse institutional settings. The aim is to outline governance structures and their functioning in terms of processes and outcomes in order to point out the factors that hinder or promote their implementation in different territorial contexts. The research reveals governance arrangements in shaping youth employment policies, influenced by local labour market dynamics, the territorial coordination network of stakeholders and the welfare regimes in which they are embedded. Furthermore, the analysis sheds light on multilevel governance configurations, underlining the importance of understanding local implementation mechanisms in order to grasp the real effectiveness and potential distortions in the achievement of youth policy goals, thereby offering valuable insights into addressing territorial disparities in youth employment.
Various economic crises, including the financial crisis of 2008 and the impactful COVID-19, have spawned novel forms of social risks that exposed the limitations of traditional anti-poverty measures. Although around for some time, Minimum Income Schemes (MISs) emerged as a measure to tackle the escalating rates of poverty, social exclusion and economic inequality in the aftermath of the financial crisis. However, they are demonstrating shortcomings as social protection tools, as vulnerable people often do not fit within the narrow definition of poverty used by policymakers. Intersectionality offers a promising analytical framework to assess this potential issue. It exposes the exclusionary and limiting nature of public policies, including MISs, while helping to identify how multiple forms of oppression intersect and shape the experience of vulnerability and access to MISs. Hence, intersectionality highlights overlapping gaps and complex inequalities in existing MISs. Additionally, intersectionality aids in crafting more effective policies, ensuring they reach those who need them most. To delve deeper into this dynamic, this systematic literature review assesses current theoretical and empirical research on MISs with a focus on intersectionality within Europe. This review not only provides a rigorous method to highlight the potential reinforcing of inequalities or unintended negative consequences for specific groups but also identifies trends affecting MIS inclusivity and outcomes.
Local authorities in the UK have suffered a decade of successive challenges, including austerity policies following the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and now an unprecedented rise in the cost of living. Drawing on an ongoing programme of research including longitudinal surveys of local councillors (n = 701 and 717) and semi-structured qualitative interviews with senior local authority officials (n = 25), this chapter explores how local government has responded to the cost-of-living crisis and the implications for its future capacity. The findings highlight that local government in the UK is struggling with significantly reduced operating capacity following long-term financial constraint and is increasingly dependent on wider welfare ecosystems to deliver critical support. This lends weight to concerns about a growing practice of ‘blame avoidance’ on the part of Westminster government policymakers as they contend with a period of severe economic challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine War.
