The Shifting Balance of Private and Public Welfare Activity in the United Kingdom, 1979 to 2007

The balance between private and public sectors in welfare activity in the UK has been documented by Burchardt (1997) and Smithies (2005) for three time periods; 1979/1980, 1995/1996 and 1999/2000. The existing evidence suggested that a welfare mix has previously been in existence but that the balance had been shifting. This paper explores this phenomenon by updating the existing evidence with a snapshot of the welfare mix in 2007/2008 across five different welfare sectors: Education, Health, Housing, Income Maintenance and Social Security and Personal Social Services. The paper systematically explores who finances, controls and delivers services in each of these five welfare sectors. Over the 29 year period, there has been a gradual increase in the proportion of welfare activity that is privately financed, controlled and delivered, and a gradual decrease in the proportion of welfare activity that is publicly financed, controlled and delivered. The most significant change is the proportion of services that are contracted-out, and the majority of this change generally occurred prior to 1995/96; since then changes have been much more slight and nuanced. Interestingly, the most significant growth in total welfare activity as a proportion of GDP occurred between 1979 and 1996, and Pure Private activity only accounted for part of this.Private provision, public provision, welfare system, public expenditure, health, education, social security, housing, personal care

Executive Summary of an EU Social Innovation Policy Survey

In recent years, social innovation has become an increasingly prominent concept employed by political leaders and administrations across Europe. It has been posited as a solution to both old and new social risks at a time of heightened uncertainty and pressure on public administrations and finances (Bonoli, 2005; OECD, 2011; Sinclair and Baglioni, 2014). There is broad recognition that, growing interest in social innovation is intimately linked to the Great Recession, structural unemployment and the social challenges arising as a result (European Commission., 2014). In political and policy rhetoric, the European Union repeatedly cites social innovation as a solution to the persistence of socio-economic, environmental and demographic challenges. These challenges are placing increasing pressure on Europe’s systems of welfare, health, education and care provision. Budgetary constraints and increased demand on public services has fuelled the desire to capitalise on social innovation so that public and private institutions are able to do and achieve more with less (TEPSIE, 2014). Not only is social innovation understood as a means to achieve an end in this regard, it is also recognised as an end in itself. Social innovation has been cited by the European Commission as ‘another way to produce value, with less focus on financial profit and more on real demands or needs… for reconsidering production and redistribution systems' (European Commission., 2014: 8). The European Commission defines social innovation as: the development and implementation of new ideas (products, services and models) to meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. It represents new responses to pressing social demands, which affect the process of social interactions. It is aimed at improving human wellbeing. Social innovations are innovations that are social in both their ends and their means. They are innovations that are not only good for society but also enhance individuals’ capacity to act. (European Commission., 2013a: 6) Work Package 6 of the Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) research programme examines how this definition (or perhaps ideal) is translated and realised in the EU and domestic policymaking process. Whilst this research pays some attention to definitional issues of social innovation and the implications of conceptualising social innovation in a particular way, the principle objective of the EU social innovation policy survey is to identify and review ‘social innovation in the context of European policymaking’ (Borzaga and Bodini, 2014: 412). As such, the range of ways in which social innovation has been conceptualised and translated into European public policy have been considered at the Pan-European and domestic level

Social Impact Bonds: Opportunities and Challenges for Social Innovation

CrESSI Deliverable 6.

Indentured: benefit deductions, debt recovery and welfare disciplining

The UK social security system performs an important role as a creditor and debt collector for many benefit claimants, with more affected by deductions than formal welfare conditionality or sanctions. Deductions, then, are central to understanding low-income life in the UK. With that in mind, this paper draws on a mixed-methods project to explore the policy rationale, administration and effects of benefit deductions at a particular moment of crisis. Through new analysis of statistical releases, I evidence increasing indebtedness and an Inverse Care Law, whereby UK social security performs worst for those who need it most. Drawing on qualitative longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the height of the cost-of-living crisis, I also evidence how deductions affect the lives and trajectories of low-income claimants over time. The analysis offered details how deductions weaponize debt, often in ways that financialise benefit claimants and their entitlements that prove counter-productive to the stated policy objectives of deductions: worsening the poverty-debt trap and pushing people (further) away from the labour market

CRESSI’s approach to social innovation: lessons for Europe 2020

A Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) policy brief based on CRESSI Deliverable 1.3: Report Contrasting CRESSI’s Approach of Social Innovation with that of Neoclassical Economic

Re-assessing social innovation to tackle marginalisation

A Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation (CRESSI) policy briefing paper based on CRESSI Deliverable 1.1: Report on Institutions, Social Innovation & System Dynamics from the Perspective of the Marginalise