Understanding Social Security: Issues for Policy and Practice

✍ Scribed by Jane Millar (editor); Roy Sainsbury (editor)

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 293
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The political and economic landscape of UK social security provision has changed significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. This fully revised, restructured and updated 3rd edition of a go-to text book covers all the key policy changes and their implications since the elections of 2010 and 2015. With contributions from leading academics in the field this book critically examines the design, entitlement, delivery and impact of current welfare provision. The first half of the book examines social security across the lifecycle from Child Benefit to retirement pensions. The second half focuses on key issues in policy and practice including new topics such as the realities of life on benefits in an era of austerity, and the pros and cons of Universal Basic Income. • Framework supports teachers and students, encouraging analytical thinking of issues and providing pointers to related sources • Authoritative and evidence-based arguments • Clear section and chapter summaries, overviews, questions for discussion, website resources and a bibliography • Includes tables, charts and text boxes for clarity, interest and appeal This book is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Social Policy taking modules on Social Security Policy, Poverty and Inequality, Income Support and Welfare Reform, as well as Social Work students and those on other Social Science degree programmes.

✦ Table of Contents

Understanding social security
Contents
Detailed contents
List of tables, figures and boxes
Tables
Figures
Boxes
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Notes on contributors
1. Social security: the landscape
What are the aims of social security?
What benefits do we have, and how do they differ?
How much do we spend on social security?
Who delivers social security?
Who receives social security?
Do we pay the ‘right’ benefit to the ‘right’ people?
Austerity and ‘welfare reform’
Reading this book
Conclusion
Part One. People and policies across the life course
2. Social security support for children
Introduction
Benefits for children: numbers in receipt and expenditure
Why does the state provide support for children?
Changing the landscape: benefits for children in the 21st century
Conclusion
3. Social security and work obligations
Introduction
Social security: unemployment and jobseeking
Social security: in-work benefits and tax credits
Universal Credit
Conclusion
4. Disabled people and carers
Introduction
The evolution of extra needs benefits
The evolution of benefits for carers
How eligibility conditions for extra needs benefits have developed
Uses of extra needs benefits
Trends in the numbers of extra needs benefits and benefits for carers
Extra needs benefits and benefits for carers in an international context
Disability and carers’ benefits and employment
Adequacy of Disability Living Allowance/Personal Independence Payment and Carer’s Allowance
Where next for extra needs benefits and benefits for carers?
Conclusion
5. Protecting pensioners
Introduction
The UK pensions system
Policy changes since 2010
Incomes and employment of pensioners
Key policy issues and challenges
6. Gender and social security
Introduction
The position of women and men in relation to the main types of benefits/tax credits
Women and welfare reform
Cumulative gender impact assessment of welfare reforms
Gender implications of new and potential policy measures
Conclusion
7. Social security and the ‘management’ of migration
Introduction
Political questions and debates
Conceptual challenges: linking migration, social security and ‘welfare’
Policy in practice
Conclusion
Part Two. Issues in policy and practice
8. Social security in a global context
Introduction
Social security principles and systems around the world
International collaboration in social security
Social security in a mobile world: international cooperation agreements
Conclusion
9. Who benefits and who pays?
Introduction
A political economy approach
Who pays?
Who benefits? The micro level
What is social security for? The macro level
Conclusion
10. Public attitudes to ‘welfare’
Introduction
Contemporary attitudes to ‘welfare’
A ‘hardening’ of attitudes to ‘welfare’?
Public attitudes and the politics of ‘welfare’
From attitudes to values and culture
11. Everyday life on benefits
Introduction
The dominant narrative of welfare dependency
Lived experiences of out-of-work benefits receipt: hard choices and going without
The work of ‘getting by’
Debt and informal borrowing
Contributions made by those ‘getting by’
Choice and agency
Benefits stigma
Conclusion
12. Jobcentres and the delivery of employment services and benefits
Introduction
Delivery of employment and related services
From Labour Exchanges to Jobcentres
An ‘employment first’ welfare state and Jobcentre Plus
Jobcentres and the Universal Credit delivery system
Digital Jobcentres, work coaches and delivery flexbilities
Jobcentre performance targets and sanctions
Changes in the welfare to work market and the Work Programme
Changing relationship between Jobcentres and local government
Conclusion
13. Making it simple? Universal basic income
Introduction
Problems with the existing system
Reshaping society
Against universal basic income: the counter-arguments
Universal basic income in practice
Evidence on desirability and feasibility
Conclusion
Conclusion
14. Facing the future: Where next for social security?
The economy, society and social security
Why increasing understanding of social security is a good idea
Unpicking ‘welfare reform’
Taking the temperature of contemporary debates
Conclusion
Index