Social Policy 3E

Theory and Practice

Spicker, Paul

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781447316121
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique sociale

Social Policy: Theory and practice is a fully revised, updated and extended edition of a bestselling social policy textbook, extensively reworked and adapted to meet the needs of its international readership. The book lays out the architecture of social policy as a field of study, binding the discussion of theory to the understanding of social policy in practice. It aims to provide students and practitioners with a sense of the scope, range and purpose of the subject while developing critical awareness of problems, issues and common fallacies. Written in an accessible and engaging style, it explains what social policy is and why it matters; looks at social policy in its social context; considers policy, the role of the state and the social services; explores issues in social administration and service delivery; and focuses on the methods and approaches of the subject. For practitioners, there are discussions of the techniques and approaches used to apply social policy in practice. For students, there are boxes raising issues and reviewing case studies, questions for discussion and a detailed glossary. The book's distinctive, path–breaking approach makes it invaluable for students studying social policy at a range levels, professionals and practitioners in the field of social policy.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: the nature of social policy

The nature of social policy

What is social policy?

Social policy begins with the study of the social services and the welfare state. It developed from ‘social administration’, a field devoted to preparing people for work in the social services in practice. One of the best known descriptions of the field comes from David Donnison:

The teaching of Social Administration began in Britain before the First World War … ‘for those who wish to prepare themselves to engage in the many forms of social and charitable effort’. … The social services are still the main things they (students) study. That means they are also interested in people’s living conditions, the processes which lead to the recognition of human needs and problems, the development of organised means for meeting needs and resolving problems, and the impact which social services and social policies have on living conditions and on society in general.1

This is where the study of social policy started, and it is still central to understanding what the subject is about. The social services are mainly understood to include social security, housing, health, social work and education – the ‘big five’ – along with others which raise similar issues, such as employment, prisons, legal services, community safety … even drains. Drains (not to be confused with sewers) are worth a moment of our attention. The draining of surface water is important to control flooding, to limit problems from insects, and to prevent the spread of disease.2 If one is concerned not just with topics that are dramatic and emotionally exciting, but with the kind of things that are important to people, which are intended to make people’s lives better, which might be taken for granted when they are there and make life intolerable when they are not, then drains are a fairly good example.

This book has a strong emphasis on practice, but it is not only about practice. Donnison continues:

Narrowly defined, social administration is the study of the development, structure and practices of the social services. Broadly defined, it is an attempt to apply the social sciences … to the analysis and solution of a changing range of social problems. It must be taught in both these senses if it is to be of any value.3

The watershed in the development of social policy was an essay by Richard Titmuss, written in 1955, on the ‘Social Division of Welfare’.4 Titmuss argued that it was impossible to understand the effects of welfare policies in isolation from the rest of society; there were many other channels through which ‘welfare’ was delivered. The theme was picked up, for example, by Hilary Rose in an essay on the ‘Sexual Division of Welfare’, in which she argued that it was not possible to understand the impact of policy on women without putting this into its social context.5 The present-day focus on social policy rather than social administration reflects a general trend for people working in the field to be less interested in the details of how services are run, and more in the broader sweep of policy and politics.

Although the practical issues the subject used to be mainly focused on are not always treated as central to the field, they haven’t gone away. On the contrary, they have developed very substantially. Issues like strategic planning, governance, partnership working and user participation have become part of the language of everyday practice in central and local government. There is a new administrative language, covering topics like needs assessment, performance indicators, targets and audit. Beyond that, we’ve seen the growth of a range of relatively new concepts – issues like empowerment, voice and quasi-markets. There are a range of new techniques and skills, obviously including changes in computer technology, but including focus groups, interactive approaches to consultation, and participative research. At a time when many people working in social policy had lost interest in social administration, the field has been growing, developing and changing.

What does social policy study?

Social policy and administration is about problems as well as policy; about ends as well as means. Titmuss suggested that the major fields of research and teaching were:

1.The analysis and description of policy formulation and its consequences, intended and unintended.

2.The study of structure, function, organisation, planning and administrative processes of institutions and agencies, historical and comparative.

3.The study of social needs and of problems, of access to, utilisation and patterns of outcome of services, transactions and transfers.

4.The analysis of the nature, attributes and distribution of social costs and diswelfares.

5.The analysis of distributive and allocative patterns in command-over-resources-through-time and the particular impact of social services.

6.The study of the roles and functions of elected representatives, professional workers, administrators and interest groups in the operation and performance of social welfare institutions.

7.The study of the social rights of the citizen as contributor, participant and user of social services.

8.The study and role of government (local and central) as an allocator of values and of rights to social property as expressed through social and administrative law and other rule-making channels.6

Social policy has always been study for a purpose. It is aimed in the first place at administrators and professionals in the public services who need to know about the problems and processes they will be dealing with. It has expanded beyond this, but the central focus of the field is still practical and applied. Although Titmuss’s description of the field invites consideration of the wider distributive implications of social welfare policy, it does so mainly as a counterpoint to his central interests in needs, problems and diswelfare. Many people would argue, as Tawney did, that the problem of poverty is also the problem of wealth: Orton and Rowlingson, for example, argue that ‘it is high time social policy analysts put riches on the agenda’.7 The simple truth, however, is that the study of social policy hasn’t been genuinely concerned with riches, and the kind of material which is studied in courses in social policy departments and published in social policy journals does not normally include studies of the position of the relatively advantaged, unless it is done by way of contrast. There is a good reason for this: studying the lifestyles of the rich tells us little or nothing that we need to know about practice. People who are preparing for public service are much more likely to be concerned with disadvantage, deprivation and social protection.

Social policy, at its core, is the study of social welfare and the social services. The main areas which it studies are

• policy and administrative practice in health administration, social security, education, employment services, community care and housing management;
• the circumstances in which people’s welfare is likely to be impaired, including disability, unemployment, mental illness, intellectual disability, and old age;
• social problems, like crime, addiction and family breakdown;
• issues relating to social disadvantage, including ‘race’, gender and poverty; and
• the range of collective social responses to these circumstances. This is often interpreted in terms of responses by the ‘welfare state’, but in different countries it may equally be understood as extending to mutual aid, voluntary effort or industrial organisation.

Several generalisations might be made about this field of study.

1.Social policy is about welfare The idea of welfare is used in a number of different ways. In its widest sense, welfare can mean ‘well-being’, and in that sense it is taken to mean the benefit of individuals or groups, which is the way the term is used in economics; people increase their ‘welfare’ when their material goods increase and lead to increased satisfaction. However, the idea also refers, more narrowly, to certain sorts of collective provision which attempt to protect people’s welfare. ‘Social welfare’ commonly refers to the range of services provided by the state. (It should be noted that ‘welfare’ is also sometimes used, particularly in the United States and more recently in the UK, to refer to certain types of benefit, especially means-tested social security, which are aimed at people who are poor.) There is no ‘correct’ usage, and there is considerable scope for confusion, because people writing about welfare may want to refer to any of the different uses.
Social policy is sometimes represented as being about ‘well-being’ in general. Fiona Williams, for example, describes the field as studying ‘the relationship between welfare and society, and different views on the best means of maximising welfare in society’.8 Hartley Dean writes:

Think for a moment about the things you need to make life worth living: essential services, such as healthcare and education; a means of livelihood, such as a job and money; vital but intangible things, such as love and security. Now think about the ways in which these can be organized: by government and official bodies; through businesses, social groups, charities, local associations and churches; through neighbours, families and loved ones. Understanding these things is the stuff of social policy.9

Hartley and I have disagreed about this.10 Social policy is concerned with well-being, but it isn’t about well-being in all its forms. It does not have much to do with the good things of life; for example, despite what he says about ‘vital but intangible t...