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There were more colons used in legislation in 2015 than there were words enacted in 1900. Using analysis from machine readings of all legislation enacted between 1900 and 2015, this book discusses the social impact of increasingly elastic legislative language on the contemporary workings of the British constitution.
The hot-button debates of our time — from immigration to European integration, to the creeping power of judges — have, at their core, battles over what policy instructions are authoritative.
The book encourages readers to connect the dots of British statecraft, and to understand how, exactly, public demands are transferred into laws that are then implemented with greater and lesser degrees of success. Crucially, it shows that vague legislation has a tremendous impact on policy delivery, disproportionately affecting the weakest, in areas including immigration, homelessness and anti-discrimination.
Personalisation - the idea that public services should be tailored to the individual, with budgets devolved to the service user or frontline staff - is increasingly seen as the future of the welfare state. This book focuses on how personalisation evolved as a policy narrative and has mobilised such wide-ranging political support. It will be a valuable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students in public policy and social policy and for researchers and practitioners working in related fields.
This book challenges existing stereotypes about the ‘consumer as chooser’. It shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services. The analysis shows that there are many different ‘faces’ of the consumer and that it is not easy to categorise users in particular environments.
Drawing on empirical research, “The consumer in public services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Choice may grab the policy headlines but other essential values are revealed as important throughout the book. One issue concerns the ‘subjects’ of consumerism, or who it is that presents themselves when they come to use public services. Another concerns consumer ‘mechanisms’, or the ways that public services try to relate to these people. Bringing these issues together for the first time, with cutting-edge contributions from a range of leading researchers, the message is that today’s public services must learn to cope with a differentiated public.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of social policy and public administration. It will also appeal to policy-makers leading ‘user-focused’ public service reforms, as well as those responsible for implementing such reforms at the frontline of modern public services.
The idea of policy is ripe for critical reappraisal. Whilst the context for policy making changes constantly, multiple questions endure, such as how policy is conceived and why; what is taken for granted and what gets problematised; and how policy should be informed, analysed and understood.
This book identifies key topics within the policy arena and subjects them to theoretical and practical analysis. It explores the meaning and framing of policy, and examines its practice from the micro- to the supra-national levels, using illustrative case studies to demonstrate how policy is contested, shaped and accounted for. Given the significance of policy as a means to organise and direct social, economic and political life, this book presents the case for a critical restatement of its origins, development and form - without which we risk being caught up in a cycle of change without understanding why or how.
The book presents a productive encounter between the three themes of meanings, politics and practices, themes normally not brought together in a single text. It emphasizes the multiplicity of perspectives that can be directed towards understanding the policy world, opening up new ground as well as visiting anew some familiar terrain. Targeted at upper undergraduate and postgraduate students and their teachers, it will also be of interest to researchers and policy actors wanting insight to their project.
How did the UK Coalition Government’s policies differ from previous Conservative (or Labour) Government policies? How did the Liberal Democrats influence them? And what can this tell us about the likely policy direction of the Conservative government elected in May 2015?
Responding to the political and social policy changes made between 2010-15 this book considers the relationship between the two coalition parties to provide a critical assessment of how their policies affected the British welfare state, including the impact of ‘austerity’.
Looking beyond 2015, the contributors consider what the implications of these changes may be for social policy, both the challenges and opportunities, which will present themselves in the future.
This book brings together a collection of new and innovative work by researchers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK - settings where issues of voluntarism and participation have become increasingly important for the development and delivery of social welfare policy. Prefaced by one of the foremost geographers in this field, it contains empirical and theoretical work from both new and well-established geographers. The chapters explore the interactions between voluntarism and a range of issues including governance, health, community action, faith, ethnicity, counselling, advocacy and professionalisation.
The book will be of interest not only to students and researchers in human geography but also to those working in social policy, sociology, health and political science. The detailed case material will also be of particular interest to practitioners working in the fields of health, governance, social welfare and social exclusion.
Remaking governance focuses on the dynamics of change as new strategies - active citizenship, public participation, partnership working, consumerism - encounter existing institutions. It explores different sites and practices of governing, from the remaking of Europe to the increasing focus on ‘community’ and ‘personhood’ in governing social life.
The authors critically engage with existing theory across political science, social policy, sociology and public administration and management to explore how ‘the social’ is constituted through governance practices. This includes the ways in which the spaces and territories of governing are remade and the peoples constituted; how the public domain is re-imagined and new forms of state-citizen relationships fostered and how the remaking of governance shapes our understanding of politics, changing the ways in which citizens engage with political power and the selves they bring to that engagement.
Remaking governance is essential reading for academics and students across a range of social science disciplines, and of interest to those engaged in policy evaluation and reform.
People who work in planning, management and service delivery in the public sector need to know how policy is translated into practice, what is happening, and whether a policy works. “Policy analysis for practice" introduces students and practitioners to the concepts, methods and techniques required to undertake the analysis and review of policy and its implementation. Focusing on developing understanding and skills for a growing area of practice, it combines material from public and social administration with examples and application to social policy and the social services. The book looks at ways to understand and analyse the main stages of the policy process: developing strategies, identifying aims, examining the situation, choosing methods, implementation and service delivery, and evaluating outcomes. It stresses throughout the role of policy analysis as a political, and not just a technical, activity. “Policy analysis for practice" is an original, thought-provoking text with a strong applied focus. It offers systematic, accessible coverage of wide-ranging literature, application to practical circumstances and the needs of people in the field and a direct relationship to vocational work in the management and administration of social services. It will be invaluable for students and practitioners in public policy, social policy and public sector management, in fields including central and local government, health and social care and the voluntary sector.
Over the past 10 years partnership working has become a central feature of public services. This book analyses experience of partnerships in different policy fields, identifying the theoretical and practical impediments to making partnership work and critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages for those involved. Its broad coverage goes beyond the confines of statutory partnerships, addressing other important forms of collaboration between voluntary, private and statutory sectors and service users and community and minority groups.
Through a wide range of perspectives, Partnership working aims to integrate theory and practice across a number of policy areas. Using a variety of models, it:
highlights both positive and negative aspects of partnership working at political, cultural and technical levels;
shows how partnerships can empower people and groups through effective collaboration;
suggests some of the principles on which good practice should be based and the resources required;
addresses key issues of accountability, representation and social exclusion.
The book provides important reading for academics, policy makers, service providers and senior practitioners in community development and community safety, local government, housing, social services and health. It will also be a valuable resource for those working in voluntary organisations and students on professional courses.
Public participation is central to a wide range of current public policies - not only in the UK, but elsewhere in the developed and the developing world. There are substantial aspirations for what enhanced participation can achieve. This book offers a critical examination of both the discourse and practice of participation in order to understand the significance of this explosion in participatory forums, and the extent to which such practices represent a fundamental change in governance. Based on 17 case studies across a range of policy areas in two English cities, the authors address key issues such as: the way in which notions of the public are constructed; the motivation of participants; how the interests and identities of officials and citizens are negotiated within forums; and the ways in which institutions enable and constrain the development of participation initiatives. Much of the literature on public participation is highly normative. This book draws from detailed empirical work, theories of governance, of deliberative democracy and social movements to offer a nuanced account of the dynamics of participation and to suggest why experiences of this can be frustrating as well as transformative. This book will be essential reading for students of public and social policy and offers important insights for those directly engaged in developing participation initiatives across the public sector
