The retreat from widening participation? : the National Scholarship Programme and new access agreements in English higher education

This article critically analyses the impact of reforms to the student financial support system in English higher education. Comparative analysis of financial support mechanisms and patterns of outreach engagement with groups underrepresented in higher education show a marked deterioration in the levels of cash support available and an increasingly focus on the brightest poor students (in the form of merit aid) at the expense of the generality of poorer students since the new support programme came into place. This can be seen as part of a wider policy shift away from generic widening participation to the targeting of specific cohorts to raise the attainment level of intakes or to meet recruitment shortfalls. The findings are located in a context of a (near) trebling of tuition fees, stagnation in overall student numbers and the promotion of market mechanisms, all of which can be seen as a challenge to the notion of social justice through the higher education system

Regional pay? The public/private sector pay differential

This paper extends the debate on making public sector wages more responsive to those in the private sector. The way in which the public/private sector wage differential is calculated dramatically alters conclusions and far from there being substantial regional disparity in wages offered to public sector workers, any differences are predominantly concentrated in London and the South East where public sector workers are significantly disadvantaged relative to private sector workers. This has implications for staff recruitment and retention. Such findings question the need for regional market-facing pay but highlight the necessity to revisit the London-weighting offered to public sector workers

Student budgets and widening participation: Comparative experiences of finance in low and higher income undergraduates at a Northern Red Brick University

Drawing on a thematic analysis of longitudinal qualitative data (ntotal = 118), this article takes a “whole student lifecycle” approach to examine how lower and higher income students at an English northern red brick university variously attempted to manage their individual budgets. It explores how students reconcile their income—in the form of loans, grants, and bursaries—with the cost of living. Four arenas of interest are described: planning, budgeting, and managing “the student loan”; disruptions to financial planning; the role of familial support; and strategies of augmenting the budget. In detailing the micro‐level constraints on the individual budgets of lower and higher income undergraduates, the article highlights the importance of non‐repayable grants and bursaries in helping to sustain meaningful participation in higher tariff, more selective, higher education institutions. It also supports an emerging body of literature that suggests that the continuing amendments to the system of funding higher education in England are unlikely to address inequality of access, participation, and outcome

The Divisive Welfare State

An important tradition in social policy writing sees the welfare state as an agent of social cohesion against the conflicts of market capitalism. Social policy in the UK is now developing in a way that directly conflicts with this approach. This may signal the future direction of change in other countries, as crisis and slow growth limit available resources and governments become increasingly committed to neo-liberal and consolidation agenda. The 2010 Conservative-led Coalition and 2015 Conservative governments in the UK use social policy to exacerbate and embed social divisions as part of a project to achieve permanent cuts in welfare state spending without damaging their own electoral chances. This paper reviews the divisive welfare state policies in relation to taxation, benefits for working age people and for immigrants and between pensioners and non-pensioners because these groups cover much of welfare state activity and are currently salient in a way that gives the project political purchase. It goes on to argue that the divisions mask a further neo-liberal long-term project of reducing the proportion of national resources going to all recipients of social spending. In this sense we are all in it together

Restructuring UK local government employment relations: pay determination and employee participation in tough times

The Conservative-led coalition government has been committed to shrinking the state and this has had a major impact on local government. This article examines the consequences of austerity measures for staff participation and pay determination in UK local government. Local government has been particularly hard hit by austerity measures and this has encouraged employers to change terms and conditions, review forms of staff participation and cut jobs. The implications for the institutional resilience of systems of employment regulation and employee involvement in the sector are considered

Oil prices and budget strategy

10.00Available from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:4363.3432(IFS--21) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Privatising London's airports

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:4363.3432(IFS--16) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo