Taking Stock: Scottish Social Welfare after Devolution

✍ Scribed by John Stewart

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 177
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

As part of the devolution process, a range of powers was granted to the newly formed Scottish Parliament in 1999. These powers principally governed social welfare where there was already a degree of Scottish autonomy. Welfare has thus been central to the devolution project. The book looks at why social welfare issues were central to the devolution process in Scotland; explores the particular social and financial circumstances in which Scottish policy makers operate; reviews and assesses Scottish policies for children, education and lifelong learning; examines health policy, including care for the elderly, an especially controversial example of 'policy divergence' from England and provides an invaluable overview of the Scottish welfare state is as it is, and discusses how it might develop in the future. This book is essential reading for all those concerned with the contemporary and historical dimensions of social policy in Scotland and how they relate to developments in other parts of the United Kingdom.

✦ Table of Contents

TAKING STOCK
Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: welfare and devolution
Scotland and social welfare: from Union to devolution
New Labour’s welfare strategy
New Labour and devolution
Enacting devolution
The elections to the Scottish Parliament 1999
New Labour’s constitutional and welfare reforms
The Scottish Executive and social welfare
The 2003 elections
Outcome and consequences
Conclusion
2. Income and expenditure
Introduction
The Barnett formula
Some implications of the current funding mechanism
The Tartan Tax
Comparative funding
Spending priorities
3. Poverty, inequality and social disadvantage
Introduction
Historical background: from Industrial Revolution to deindustrialisation
Acknowledging, measuring and thinking about poverty
Scottish analyses of poverty and social exclusion
Poverty and the Executive
External evaluations
The dimensions of poverty and inequality in Scotland
Health inequalities
Child poverty
Summary
4. Children, education and lifelong learning
Introduction
Scottish education: history and identity
New Labour and education
The Scottish Executive and education
The 2000 Standards in Scotland’s Schools Act
National Priorities and the national debate
Problems?
Comprehensives and league tables
Confidence and commitment
International standards
Organisation and delivery
Scottish child welfare strategies
Conclusion
5. Health policy
Introduction
Scottish healthcare to 1997
New Labour and health policy
Devolution and health policy
The Executive’s health strategy
Health policy after the 2003 elections
Problems?
A Scottish path?
Policy divergence and the integration of health and social care: the elderly
Conclusion
6. Scottish social welfare after devolution: autonomy and divergence?
Introduction
Scotland in the UK
Welfare autonomy
Has devolution made a difference?
A distinctively Scottish approach?
Who is diverging from whom?
References
Bibliographical references
Index