The first part of this article explores the ways in which the term ‘prevention’ is utilized in the field of the personal social services. The conclusion is reached that, unlike its legitimate use in the physical world, the term is intellectually confused when applied to social services. In Part Two it is argued that this confusion has unanticipated and damaging consequences. It leads to an unfair deal for clients, to confusion and status differentials for staff, and an increase in the social control apparatus of public agencies. It is suggested that the abandonment of ‘pseudo-prevention’ may lead to the clarification and explication of more defensible boundaries based on the analysis of problems rather than the attainment of ideal states.

The literature on policy implementation is divided with regards to the impact of street-level bureaucrats on the implementation of public policies. In this paper, we aim to add to and nuance these debates by focusing on ‘institutional work’ – i.e. the creation, maintenance and disruption of institutions – undertaken by central authorities and street-level bureaucrats during public reform processes. On the basis of a case study of the organisational implementation of a retirement pension reform in the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration, we argue that institutional work is a useful heuristic device for conceptualising the variety of responses available to street-level bureaucrats during public reforms. We also argue that the responses demonstrate the impact of street-level bureaucrats in these reforms in the context of managerial control and regulation. Finally, we argue that the effectiveness of policy change is dependent on the institutional work of street-level bureaucrats and, in particular, on institutional work that supports the institutions created by politicians and public administrations.

Several countries, including Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, have enacted asset-based policies for children in recent years. The premise underlying these policies is that increases in assets lead to improvement in various child outcomes over time. But little existing research examines this premise from a dynamic perspective. Using data from the NLSY79 mother and child datasets, two parallel process latent growth curve models are estimated to examine the effects of parental asset accumulation on changes in children's achievements over six years during middle childhood. Results indicate that the initial level of assets is positively associated with math scores, but not reading scores, while faster asset accumulation is associated with changes in reading scores, but not in math scores. Overall, the results suggest that the relationship between assets and various child outcomes may not be straight-forward. Different dimensions of the asset experience may lead to different outcomes, and the same dimension may also have different effects. Implications for future research and for asset-based policies are discussed.

Following the expansion of the European Union in 2004 unprecedented numbers of Accession 8 migrants from Central and Eastern Europe entered the UK. These migrants are often concentrated in particular urban neighbourhoods, which are already routinely home to diverse communities and/or characterised by high levels of social deprivation. Using original data from a study in a northern English city, this paper explores the ways in which established communities experience and make sense of the local impact of new migration within their neighbourhoods. The belief that newly arrived migrants are in competition with established communities for finite local jobs and welfare resources is central to the expressed concerns of established communities about the potential for A8 migration to have a localised negative impact.

Utilising Ellison's (2000) theoretical insights, the paper argues that established communities’ concerns, rather than being simply an expression of xenophobic intolerance, have their basis in how the expansion of the EU facilitates opportunities for the ‘proactive engagement’ of citizenship status among A8 migrants, whilst often triggering a more ‘defensive engagement’ among members of local host communities.

This article examines the debate between the power resources and ‘new politics’ scholars concerning the politics of welfare state retrenchment in advanced industrial democracies. Both approaches make competing claims concerning the relevance of partisan differences in the current age of welfare reform. This article tests the new politics hypothesis that partisanship has had a declining impact on welfare politics over time through an analysis of the growth in the public share of health care spending in 18 countries from 1960 to 2000. Consistent with the new politics approach, the results reveal that the partisan character of government no longer plays a significant role in determining changes in public responsibility for health care during the new politics period. This suggests that the current period is characterised by general agreement across party lines on the broad parameters of the health care system, reducing the intense partisan conflicts of the past to debates over reform at the margins of the health care system.

Despite the growth in studies of Russian social policy, the reality of the social policy process – most of which is regionally based – remains a puzzle. In this article, we stake a claim for the importance of studying street-level social service provision in Russia's regions to advance the understanding of social policymaking in authoritarian-leaning regimes. We show that – albeit in small ways in only some places – Russia has expanded its welfare state, taking on an issue neglected by the Soviet regime in response to activism. Using the lens of work against domestic violence, we conduct a case study of women's crisis centres in Saint Petersburg. We show the limitations of the two usual state-society frameworks – those looking at civil society and at the welfare state. Building on their strengths, we construct a de facto feminist framework that focuses on how much and what kind of help citizens receive from both state and societal actors. In Russia's social policymaking, shaped by federalism, we find mixed success –civic organizations have weakened, but the state has taken on civic initiatives at local levels – and point to the importance of the informal politics of speaking in code and navigating elite networks.

Housing wealth dominates the asset portfolios of the older population in Australia and many other countries. Given the anticipated spike in fiscal costs associated with population ageing, there is growing policy interest in housing equity withdrawal (HEW) to finance living needs in retirement. This paper sheds light on homeowners’ perceptions of the obstacles associated with two forms of HEW: mortgage equity withdrawal (where the in situ home owner increases his/her housing-related debt) and downsizing (where housing equity is released by moving to a lower-valued property). We uncover a series of age-specific barriers impeding older Australians’ use of these forms of HEW through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with home owners and professional service providers in related areas of policy and practice. To that end, we recommend the development of a range of safeguards that will minimise the risk exposure and other obstacles associated with HEW for older home owners.

The debate on effects of globalisation on welfare states is extensive. Often couched in terms of a battle between the compensation and the efficiency theses, the scholarly literature has provided contradictory arguments and findings. This article contributes to the scholarly debate by exploring in greater detail the micro-level foundations of compensation theory. More specifically, we distinguish between individual policy preferences for compensatory social policies (unemployment insurance) and human capital-focused social investment policies (education), and expect globalisation to mainly affect demand for educational investment. A multi-level analysis of International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) survey data provides empirical support for this hypothesis. This finding provides an important revision and extension of the classical analytical perspective of compensation theory, because it shows that citizens value the social investment function of the welfare state above and beyond simple compensation via social transfers. This might be particularly relevant in today's skill-centred knowledge economies.

The combination of economic recession and political reaction — which might be expected to lead to an increase in inequality — has been accompanied in the United Kingdom by an intellectual critique of the egalitarian impact of social welfare provision. This paper examines the pattern and trend of inequality and redistribution in recent years in the light of these economic, political and intellectual pressures. The paper demonstrates that inequality has increased since 1976 and that the increase has been more marked since 1979. The main factor causing this increase was the less equal distribution of market incomes, a major effect of the recession. Tax changes were a secondary factor, whilst changes in social benefit programmes had little effect. While social spending did not bring about greater overall equality, it combated and significantly modified the pressures towards greater inequality. The impact of recession is particularly apparent in the changing composition of the bottom of the income distribution: the elderly are being replaced by the unemployed as the inhabitants of the lowest levels of economic welfare.

People with mental illness can be profoundly disabled and at risk of social exclusion. Transitional models of supported housing have limited effectiveness in improving community participation. Stable, individualised psychosocial housing support programmes have been found to assist in improving mental health and decreasing hospitalisations, but little is understood about whether or how these programmes facilitate social and community participation. This article argues that, if certain supports are available, supported housing models can assist people with high levels of psychiatric disability to participate meaningfully in the community. To make this case, the article uses findings of a longitudinal evaluation of a supported housing model in Australia: the Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative Stage One (HASI). HASI is a partnership between the New South Wales Government Departments of Health and Housing and non-government organisations. It is a coordinated approach that provides clients with housing and community-based clinical support, as well as support with daily living skills and community participation. An analysis of questionnaire, database, interview and clinical data is used to demonstrate how HASI contributes to increased social and community participation. The article concludes with policy implications for supported housing models that aim to facilitate meaningful community participation for people with mental illness.

Food insecurity in Europe has recently received increasing research and political attention. Yet, considerable gaps remain in our understanding: the demographic groups most at risk, the role of social benefit receipt, and whether higher-value social benefits protect against food insecurity among recipients all remain unknown. Multilevel models were used to examine food insecurity in 63,168 adults from 27 countries included in the European Quality of Life Survey in 2007 and 2011. Food insecurity was more prevalent among people with lower incomes, women, older people, renters, one-person and lone-parent households, those with lower education, people with disabilities, and those outside the labour market. Although food insecurity was concentrated at low incomes, income and food insecurity were imperfectly associated. The role of social benefit receipt was equivocal: food insecurity was not associated with pension or child benefit receipt, but was significantly more prevalent among out-of-work and all social benefit recipients, which may reflect eligibility rules and benefit conditionality. Furthermore, higher-value social benefits were not associated with lower risks of food insecurity across the different recipient groups, either because their value is insufficient, or because social benefits are unable to fully mitigate the individual and structural risk factors for food insecurity in Europe.

The welfare state faces a number of challenges. Recent reforms in the UK appear broadly successful in attaining targets and improving cost-efficiency, but are nonetheless confronted by public disquiet and unease. This article argues that one difficulty with the new directions in policy is that they rest on a particular and limited understanding of agency. Reformers tend to operate within a theoretical framework that understands behaviour as driven by individual and predominantly rational incentives and pays little attention to the expressive and normative aspects of social action. The problems that arise in these areas when a competitive market logic is applied in social provision tend not to be recognised. Such a logic may contradict established values of social care and commitment to user interests. A qualitative survey of 48 members of the general public is used to examine perceptions of and responses to the NHS reforms, and to show how public discourse in this area is at variance with the instrumental and individual assumptions of policy-makers. The result is that the reform programme damages the legitimacy of the service and that those responsible for the new policies fail to recognise that the individual instrumental agenda is eroding public trust.

This paper examines intergenerational justice discourses that feature prominently in both the contemporary UK media and beyond, arguing that these constitute both a continuation of previous debates about the economic and social burden of the dependent ‘fourth age’ and a newer and more prominent denigration of the ‘third age’, both of which possess deep cultural and psychological roots. Both themes are subsumed in the trope of the old as in some ways stealing the future of the nation, represented by youth. Analysing media depictions of intergenerational injustice across several themes, the paper suggests that, whilst justifying welfare retrenchment and other aspects of neoliberalism, the portrayal of social problems in terms of generational war emerges from age ideology and an age system that, among other things, intersects with and naturalises other forms of stratification. This partly accounts for the fact that the attack on the ‘third age’ is particularly prevalent in left of centre, or progressive, media on both sides of the Atlantic. That the age system has been overlooked and underplayed in sociological terms is an important oversight since the former materially and ideologically facilitates the ever-growing socio-economic inequality that is a feature of our times.

We conducted a vignette experiment involving 470 Norwegian front-line workers to investigate whether their decisions to sanction non-compliance of activation requirements varied with the ethnicity of the welfare claimant. This is the first vignette experiment on ethnic discrimination in the administration of activation programmes in Europe. The study shows that front-line workers did not sanction claimants with a North African name more often than claimants with a native Norwegian name. However, among front-line workers who had experience with the relevant activation programme, a male claimant with a North African name was sanctioned less often than a male claimant with a native Norwegian name. Thus, we find some degree of reverse discrimination on the part of experienced front-line workers. This finding is contrary to a similar US vignette experiment that detected discrimination (not reverse discrimination) with regard to claimants with an ethnic minority name. The most likely explanation for the difference concerns the different institutional-cultural contexts within which Norwegian and US social policy programmes operate.

Despite international growth of, and policy interest in, divorce and separation since the 1970s, there is still surprisingly little known about non-residential fatherhood. This paper presents a ‘father-centric’ analysis and provides one of the first profiles of non-residential fatherhood in early millennium UK. Using data from Understanding Society Wave 1, a nationally representative survey of over 30,000 households in the UK, we found 1,070 men self-identifying as having a non-resident child under 16 years old (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk). We estimate a prevalence of 5 per cent of British men having a non-resident dependent child. Through latent class analysis, four distinct groups of non-resident fathers are identified: ‘Engaged’ fathers, ‘Less Engaged’ fathers, ‘Disengaged’ fathers and ‘Distance’ fathers. Our analysis finds that non-resident fathers form a heterogeneous group in terms of their socio-demographic profile and family behaviour. It is recommended that legislation and policy concerning fathers in post-separation families are sensitive to variation as well as commonality in socio-economic conditions and family lives and situations.

Elderly clients usually express satisfaction with their services when they are asked. Surveys of clients and carers therefore have to take this tendency into account. It is important not to ask direct questions and to allow for positive, neutral and negative responses, otherwise positive responses will be overestimated. A survey of clients and carers served by a community psychogeriatric service indicated that the way a service is delivered can be more important than what is provided. The differences between staff and user perceptions of services are analysed. There are theoretical reasons for the differences connected with the combination of care and control exercised by service providers. There are also practical reasons in terms of staff perceptions, which are dominated by process, and client perceptions, which are more directly influenced by the services as they are actually delivered. Attempts to incorporate users' views into the processes of service delivery need to understand these differences and to acknowledge the limitations of user satisfaction surveys.

The problem over the use of accident and emergency departments is portrayed in terms of a typical conflict between professional and lay needs. However, in contrast with the more common image of the professional hospital doctor successfully developing both structural and interactional strategies for maintaining professional dominance over the patient, it is argued that the structural characteristics of the accident and emergency department pose control problems for the profession. These control problems have been exacerbated by developments in other areas of the health service and have led to the development of policies which emphasize both clinical and social elements of patient need. Although there is apparent recognition by providers of the importance of taking into account patient need, the proposed policies are based on professional images of how patients ‘ought’ to use the service. What is clearly lacking is comprehensive data on how the public and the community wishes to use the service and how they actually use the service. Data from national and local studies on patient felt needs and patient demand for the hospital accident and emergency departments are presented and the implications for policy are discussed.

Universal Credit is the UK’s globally innovative social security reform that replaces six means tested benefits with one monthly payment for working age claimants - combining social security and tax credit systems. Universal Credit expands welfare conditionality via mandatory job search conditions to enhance ‘progression’ amongst working claimants by requiring extra working hours or multiple jobs. This exposes low paid workers to tough benefit sanctions for non-compliance, which could remove essential income indefinitely or for fixed periods of up to three years. Our unique contribution is to establish how this new regime is experienced at micro level by in-work claimants over time. We present findings from Qualitative Longitudinal Research (141 interviews with 58 claimants, 2014-17), to demonstrate how UC impacts on in-work recipients and how conditionality produces a new coerced worker-claimant model of social support. We identify a series of welfare conditionality mismatches and conclude that conditionality for in-work claimants is largely counterproductive. This implies a redesign of the UK system and serves as an international warning to potential policy emulators.

The recent German welfare state reform with the introduction of Social Code II has created a complex situation for the labour market integration of long-term unemployed people with disabilities. A range of social laws with differing underlying principles is now applicable. In this article, we examine the effects that the implementation of this social code has on long-term unemployed people with disabilities. We show that their integration patterns changed. This is due to the building of new institutions responsible for labour market integration, followed by a temporary destabilisation of work routines at the operational level. Additionally, more persistent consequences occur because the inconsistencies of the relevant laws are creating an area of conflict, which is increasing the risk of marginalising people with disabilities in terms of labour market integration.

With the continued implementation of the personalisation policy, Personal Budgets (PBs) have moved to the mainstream in adult social care in England. The relationship between the policy goals of personalisation and safeguarding is contentious. Some have argued that PBs have the potential to empower recipients, while others believe PBs, especially Direct Payments, might increase the risk of abuse.

This paper provides empirical evidence about levels of uptake of PBs and safeguarding referrals in England based on in-depth analysis of national data at aggregate, local council level in England, covering 152 Councils. This is complemented by analysis of 2,209 individual referral records obtained from three purposively selected study sites. The aim is to explore whether available data could provide evidence of association between the uptake of PBs and safeguarding referrals. Analysis of the national dataset found no significant relationships between PB uptake and the level and type of alleged abuse. However, analysis of individual-level referral data, from the three selected sites did find some significant associations particularly with financial abuse; and found the main perpetrators of the alleged abuse to be home-care employees. The findings are discussed within the context of current policy and practice.