Non-take-up of means-tested benefits is a widespread phenomenon which undermines the effectiveness and fairness of social policies. The digitalisation of the welfare state creates new opportunities for proactively contacting people who are potentially entitled to benefits, but do not take up their social rights. In this study, we report on how new data flows were used to reach out to potential beneficiaries of the Increased Reimbursement of health care, a programme targeted at low-income households in Belgium. By randomizing the period in which potential beneficiaries were contacted, we were able to identify a three- to four-fold increase in take-up among those contacted as a result of the outreaching activities. Households that did not respond to the intervention, the never takers, have lower pre-intervention healthcare expenditures. This suggests that non-take-up was reduced primarily among those who would expect to benefit most from receiving the Increased Reimbursement. Exploiting the combination of rich administrative data with experimental evidence, we also find that early responders are mostly older and have higher historic health expenditures than late responders. Furthermore, results point to the need for balancing well the inclusiveness of the intervention with an increased number of applications by ineligible people.

The concept of Sozialpolitik (social policy) has rarely been considered in the English-language literature thus far. The present article surveys the pertinent English, American and German literature which led to the initiation of the Verein für Sozialpolitik (Social Policy Association) in 1873. All these efforts culminated in Otto von Zwiedineck's classic book, Sozialpolitik (1911). A chapter of this book, now printed in Zwiedineck's collected essays, Mensch und Wirtschaft, is offered in English translation for the first time. The article presents and clarifies the concept of Sozialpolitik in terms of social action directed toward problems affecting society as a whole and the continued attainment of society's goals. However, the definition of these goals remains subject to change. A theoretical foundation for the integration of scientific and normative perspectives in the social sciences is thereby provided.

The BMA (British Medical Association)–TUC (Trades Union Congress) Joint Committee on Medical Questions, established in 1936, was an experiment in consensus. It was the first attempt to cross the barriers in medical politics. In the 1930s the strategy of ‘administration rather than advocacy’ prompted the co-operation of the TUC with the BMA on medical questions of mutual interest. The operation of the partnership is explored here in the formulation of a scheme for a national maternity service acceptable to both parties. However, the reality of co-operation at the level of specific proposals was an insistence by the BMA on its own point of view. The TUC had to decide whether a joint scheme was worth the price. Although a scheme was eventually produced, as an experiment in consensus the committee had failed. To some extent the war obscured this failure, but the consensus itself was wrecked by the intransigence of the BMA and the hostility of the Labour movement, which was angry at the extent of the concessions which the TUC had made for a national maternity scheme.

Although community care has been the professed policy of successive governments over three decades, according to the Prime Minister's own adviser, Sir Roy Griffiths, ‘in few areas can the gap between political rhetoric and policy on the one hand or between policy and reality in the field on the other hand have been so great’. This paper examines the extent and causes of this ‘implementation gap’ in respect of services for people with mental handicaps—a consistent priority group for national policymakers. We examine centre–periphery relations in the health and personal social services in the light of Rhodes' power–dependence framework and his concepts of policy networks and policy communities. The NHS has been described as the archetypal professionalised policy network but we conclude that it is possible to account for implementation failures in community care only partly in terms of the dominance of the medical professions' values and interests and the deficiencies of accountability and control due to clinical autonomy. Such failures are due also to the inherently limited power of the centre. Sub-central units are not merely its meek agents. Moreover, the centre must explicitly structure local environments by itself providing a coherent framework of service and resource policies compatible with the national objectives it is seeking to achieve.

The statutory function of local health councils in Scotland (and of community health councils in England and Wales) is to represent the interests of the public in the health service. This article, based on data from a fouryear research project financed by the Scottish Office, examines official and participants' assumptions and claims about the legitimacy of health councils, as at present constituted, to carry out this function. Clarification of the basis of their legitimacy would assist, it is argued, in the resolution of a central dilemma: How are councils to represent the interests of the public? The conclusion is reached that inadequate thought was given to developing theoretically sustainable arrangements. Several interpretations of representation are admixed in the rationale for the present system and they cannot be aggregated to produce a coherent defence of it.

This article examines the activities of the Children's Committee of the London County Council (LCC) and what a contemporary newspaper referred to as a ‘daring experiment’: its efforts to discharge children from public care to Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s. Archival evidence reveals how Irish children were identified and separated from English children in care and, in many instances, sent to Ireland. It is maintained the dominant constructions of ‘Ireland’ played a role in the scheme. In addition, the LCC policy is examined and viewed in the context of other exclusionary practices centred on Irish people in Britain in the mid-twentieth century.

This article explores the response of the child welfare system in Germany to the recent refugee crisis. Drawing on administrative data and qualitative interviews with administrators, front-line workers and refugee youth in Nuremberg, the article provides a contextualized account of how the crisis led to the collapse of established bureaucratic procedures, new forms of interagency collaboration and a flexible distribution of responsibilities and tasks. Combining a street-level bureaucracy (SLB) perspective with insights from the literature on crisis and policy change, the analysis shows how the responses of front-line workers effectively altered the content of services, introduced new actors and expanded the professional capacity of the local child welfare system. On a broader level, the findings indicate that front-line practice is not merely guided by policy mandates, but also responds to situational and institutional circumstances. For the child welfare system in Nuremberg, the findings raise important questions about the extent to which aspects of the crisis response will remain a part of the service delivery process moving forward, and whether the recent experience will better prepare them for future crises.

In 2008, compulsory community care (CCC) for people with severe mental illness was introduced in Sweden. CCC requires co-operation between psychiatric and social services, thus further complicating the longstanding difficulties with service coordination in the mental health field.

This article investigates what happens when a new policy is introduced that assumes complex co-operation of two organisations bestowed with high degrees of discretion. The process of institutionalisation will be analysed in terms of how an idea is translated and materialised on local levels. This has been investigated by interviewing key informants within psychiatric and social services at three different locations.

The implementation was perceived as relatively successful and occurred without major conflict. The main effect of the new legislation was improvement in the coordination of services, where designing a template form for a coordinated care plan was central. The inter-organisational discussions about service coordination that arose had a spill-over effect on services for other patient groups.

In essence, respondents describe CCC as a pedagogical reform to promote the coordination of services, rather than a reform to increase coercive powers over patients. This raises concerns about the legitimacy of the reform.

India’s main food and nutrition security programme, the Public Distribution System (PDS), provides subsidised rice and sugar to deprived households. Using longitudinal data from Young Lives for Indian children (n = 2,944) aged 5 to 16 years, we assessed whether PDS subsidies skewed diets towards sugar and rice consumption, increasing risk of stunting (low height-for-age). Linear regression models were used to quantify additional rice and sugar consumption associated with accessing the PDS, and the association with stunting linked to consumption. Controlling for sociodemographics, accessing the PDS was positively, significantly associated with consumption of rice (30g/day) and sugar (7.05g/day). There was no evidence that this increase corresponded to nutritional improvements. Each 100g increase in daily rice intake was associated with a lower height-for-age z-score (HAZ) and no decline in stunting. Results were robust to alternative model specifications. There was no evidence that receipt of PDS rice and sugar was associated with improvements in child nutrition.

A decade on from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, this article examines the contributions of social scientists to the Inquiry on two key issues: the meaning of institutional racism and the police response to racial violence. These academic inputs are characterised as instrumental and reflexive forms of knowledge. While social science applied to social policy is most effective in instrumental mode, rather than reflexively, there are various factors – such as the interpretation of evidence, media debate and the role of prominent individuals – that are more significant in assessing its consequences. The impact of these factors mean that, although academic work on these issues has been influential, the outcome appears to be that institutional racism has run its course and been disowned or downgraded, while racial violence has become subsumed within the broader category of hate crime. It is argued that the relationship between academic knowledge and policy requires a better grasp of the complexities of applying social science, and that is what this article aims to make a contribution to.

Passported benefits are additional benefits provided to individual or households based on a previous eligibility to a “primary” social security benefit. Although passported benefits should be easier to claim, in reality the claiming process is often cumbersome and results in low take-up. Drawing on an Israeli case study, we offer a conceptual framework to categorize and analyse the varieties of passported benefits along five dimensions: the eligibility role of primary cash benefits; automation level; legal status; type of service delivery; and the degree of decentralization. The administrative burden literature is employed to make sense of the paradox of passported benefits becoming a site for administrative burden. Using our conceptual framework and drawing on interviews with officials and claimants, we demonstrate why some passported benefits are more user-friendly while others tend to become administratively burdensome.

This article discusses the experiences of women and children who become homeless as a result of domestic violence and assesses the extent to which their need for housing, both temporary and permanent, is being met within Wales. It explores women's experiences of living in and moving on from refuges. Refuge provision in Wales is not sufficient to meet the demand for refuge spaces. However, for those women and children who are accommodated in refuges, the experience is significant in supporting them through a highly stressful period of their lives. This is related to the communal nature of refuge living and the high levels of support from refuge workers and from other women. The availability of suitable and affordable move-on accommodation for women and children leaving refuges is also insufficient to meet need. This results in long stays in refuges for women and children who have been accepted as officially homeless and are waiting to be rehoused by local authorities and may lead to their returning to violent domestic situations. It also exacerbates the shortage of refuge provision for women and children in need of temporary, crisis accommodation. Women and children who have survived domestic violence need access to housing which is safe and affordable where support is available if wished for. These needs are not being met.

The translation perspective explores the travel of policy ideas, programmes and practices across international boundaries, focusing on the process through which interpretative agents introduce and adjust borrowed policy items to a new policy context. Current research emphasises the significance of local networks’ support for translation's efficacy. However, we know little about how such networks are maintained and stabilized over time or how changing configurations and capacities may affect translation's prospects. This paper explores the case of Israel's attempted institutionalisation of workfare – an enduring international policy fashion – from 1998 to the present day. We follow the stabilization and destabilization of the local translation network across different levels and sites of policy design and implementation, analysing emerging conflicts and agreements at each site. We use the metaphor ‘episodes of translation’ to explore translation's value as a concept accounting for local policy change. In order for translation-led policy change to maintain legitimacy and actualisation in contested domains, ongoing engagement of existing and emerging policy actors is essential. This case demonstrates how when networks become destabilized, translation-led policy change may come to a halt.

The enormous growth of state expenditure in advanced industrial societies during the thirty years after the second world war is widely acknowledged and many attempts have been made to account for the phenomenon. Most of these explanations, however, either isolate specific factors or are applicable at a very high level of generality and so make it difficult to develop a wider understanding of the growth of the modern welfare state. This article is predicated upon the assumption that one way to overcome this difficulty is to identify, and evaluate the importance of, the different factors which have stimulated the growth of specific programmes rather than aggregate expenditures. It examines the growth of state spending on national insurance pensions in the United Kingdom between 1951 and 1978, therefore, because this is the most expensive of all social programmes. The primary purpose of the article is to identify, discuss and assess the relative importance of the most important causal factors which account for the growth of spending on pensions. This analysis is based upon the decomposition of the growth into its most important constituent parts. An attempt is also made to employ multiple regression to investigate changes in the real rate of basic pension, but the conclusion reached in this particular case is that it is a poor substitute for historical case studies. Finally, some speculative thoughts are advanced about possible future trends in spending on basic state pensions.

The legitimacy of welfare state institutions is a key question in public policy research. In this study we examine population’s confidence in child protection systems, the role of institutional context and moral alignment. Analysing representative samples of survey data (N=6,043) of citizens in six European countries (Czechia, England, Finland, Norway, Poland and Romania), we find that overall people express confidence in their child protection system. Differences between populations are correlated with institutional context, i.e. the type of child protection system in place – that is, if people live in a country with a risk-oriented system or a family service-oriented system. People’s view on their moral alignment with the system (or not) only shows minor differences in support of interventions. However, a tendency towards polarisation is detected in Finland and Norway with clear differences in support of interventions that restrict parental rights: individuals who state they are in alignment with the system favour stronger interventions than those who say they are not.

The standard of living of older people is a critical policy matter, given Australia's ageing population. Conventional living standard assessments continue to rely on disposable income as a defining indicator, despite it not encompassing the full range of potential consumption possibilities that affect an individual's economic living standard. This article proposes a series of three economic resource metrics that sequentially append the disposable income metric with the value of non-cash benefits and services arising from the receipt of public goods and/or services from home ownership in the form of a ‘full’ income metric, and then the inclusion of wealth in the form of two derived ‘potential consumption’ metrics. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, the findings demonstrate that augmenting disposable income with income streams from non-cash services and annuitised wealth substantially improves the relative economic position of older Australians. It also highlights the heterogeneity in economic living standard outcomes for different demographic sub-groups of older people that would otherwise be drawn using a disposable income analytic lens. The article argues that an expanded economic resource perspective is necessary for informing ageing and social policy.

This article describes and explains labour market reforms in Portugal during the sovereign debt crisis from 2011 to 2014. Policy outputs were not homogenous, but differentiated between a first phase where recalibration co-existed alongside hard liberalising measures and a second phase, from late 2012, where recalibration was dropped and liberalisation further deregulated employment protection and security and eroded collective bargaining. This variation is explained by the changing coalitional politics and blame allocation underpinning policymaking under conditionality. Initial reforms resulted from a broad informal political coalition spanning the governing centre-right parties, the main opposition party, a trade union and employer confederations; its breakdown in late 2012 led to the executive’s increasing centralisation, the shut down of social concertation, and more radical policy outputs. The article shows that cooperation between government and opposition and government and social partners is possible even under external conditionality, how coalition politics affects the nature and direction of reforms, and highlights how political dynamics of blame allocation drive the process of coalition building and breakdown.

Equivalence scales, used to compare incomes across household types, strongly influence which households have low reported income, affecting public policy priorities. Yet they draw on abstract, often dated evidence and arbitrary judgements, and on comparisons across the income distribution rather than focusing on minimum requirements. Budget standards provide more tangible comparisons of the minimum required by different household types. The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) method, now established in several countries, applies a common methodological framework for compiling budgets, based on public deliberations. This article draws for the first time on results across countries. In all of the four countries examined, it identifies an under-estimation by the OECD scale of the relative cost of children compared to adults, and, in three of the four, an under-estimation of the cost of singles compared to couples. This more systematically corroborates previous, dispersed evidence, and helps explain which specific expenditure categories influence these results. These results have high policy relevance, showing greater proportions of low income households to contain children than standard income distribution data. While no single equivalence scale can be universally accurate, making use of evidence based directly on benchmarks such as MIS can help inform public priorities in tackling low income.