This introductory article offers an analytical framework to understand the limits of approaches that stress the diffusion and transfers of international norms within the field of disability policy over the last three decades. It also aims to provide alternative ways to frame some of the important changes that have occurred through the concept of layering, in order to better account for the intricate processes of national translation but also for the contradictions, conflicts, and obstacles that the promotion of disability rights have faced in different countries. Finally, this article serves to introduce the contributions that make up the themed section in this issue of Social Policy and Society.

‘The big society’ was a central theme in the Conservative's 2010 general election campaign. Opinion polls at the time of the election suggested that ‘the big society’ had little resonance with the public. Nevertheless, ‘the big society’ has been the subject of a number of prominent re-launches since the election. It appeared to underpin the Coalition government's policies in a range of areas and the Prime Minister invested considerable personal capital in it. This article examines public attitudes towards ‘the big society’. Drawing on public opinion data, it focuses on public recognition and understanding of ‘the big society’ and more broadly on whether the government's approach to rolling back state provision has prompted an increased public appetite for involvement in the delivery of services.

Children's policy has emerged from the shadows of family and education policy over the last decade throughout the UK. The decade has also seen political and policy transformation, with the change of government from Conservatives to New Labour in 1997 and the latter's delivery on its promise of devolved administrations. Devolution has accompanied claims and attempts to move from ‘government to governance’, to recognise and support partnerships and encourage greater civic engagement.

Scottish children's policy is a prism to review key questions of devolution and its impact on policy change. The article traces and considers policy trends, to conclude that distinctive government structures have interacted with other influences to shape change, allowing more and ‘new’ room for community interests, political parties and distinctive policies.

Mexican social policy has been transformed in recent years with the introduction and expansion of social assistance programmes, causing a diversion from the trajectory based on social insurance since the first decades of the twentieth century. This article aims to understand the outcomes of that transformation, by applying welfare regime theory to establish how social policy reforms have affected the distribution of welfare responsibilities among the state, markets and families. The research identifies (de)commodification and (de)familialisation outcomes of policy changes in pensions, healthcare, unemployment and family support. Results suggest that the expansion has not produced significant reductions in decommodification or defamilialisation because of: a) the explicit or implicit role assigned to markets in policy design and implementation, and b) the reliance of the process of economic liberalisation on the welfare role performed by families. The case of Mexico may illustrate the current welfare challenges faced by societies across Latin America.

The recent emergence of the term social capital into the vocabulary of policy makers in the UK is indicative of the community-led model which is currently being championed by New Labour. However, before the practical value (if any) of this particular ‘new’ idea can be realised, ways of measuring social capital which would make it ‘fit for purpose’ in the local policy setting need to be developed. The findings of one project, which set about measuring social capital in four West Midlands boroughs, provides the basis for a preliminary assessment of what a social capital-oriented tool may actually contribute to the development and implementation of policies at the local level.

This article takes a novel approach to exploring the business case for diversity (BCD) as it has been adopted in the British National Health Service (NHS), principally in terms of ‘race’ and ethnicity for the sake of clarity and manageability. It draws on realist perspectives that consider issues of context, mechanism and outcome. It concludes that transferring policies from other countries and sectors is problematic, and consequently that the application of the BCD to the NHS must be treated with extreme caution.

This article contributes to debates about agency (meaning the behaviour of individuals) and structure, by drawing on empirical research into personal debt. Consideration of debt allows for debate about agency and structure beyond the narrow confines of welfare, and for the examination of agency in relation to citizens at different points in the broader socio-economic structure, not solely poor people. Based on the research findings, themselves grounded in interviewees' experience, the question of why two people in the same material circumstances will have different experiences becomes reframed as why two people whose exercise of agency is the same, face very different outcomes? It is argued that while the research supports a ‘both-and’ rather than ‘either-or’ approach to understanding agency and structure, a ‘both-and’ approach still does not fully capture the experience of interviewees. The key point is that the exercise of agency is overlaid onto structural inequality, and it is understanding the exercise of ‘agency within structure’ that is critical.

If we are to be able to reflect the cost implications of changes in the nature, quality and productivity of long-term care interventions in future projections, we need an approach to measurement that reflects the value and quality of care. This paper describes a theoretically based but pragmatic approach to identifying the welfare gain from government expenditure on social care and illustrates an application in projecting the costs of long-term care used in the Wanless review of future needs of social care for older people in England.

The article identifies a resurgence of anti-Travellerism in post-Good Friday Agreement, post-Celtic Tiger Ireland – most obviously signalled by the ongoing Irish Government policy of ‘ethnicity denial’. It provides a comparative analysis of the different trajectories of state reformism with regard to Travellers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - from the promised ‘final solution’ to the ‘Traveller problem’ of the Commission on Itinerancy in 1963 through the high water mark of the 1995 Task Force Report. It finds a disturbing recrudescence of assimilationist, sedentarist and racist ideas and practices in contemporary state policies towards Travellers.

The ‘ChangeUp’ and ‘FutureBuilders initiatives have provided substantial funding to support and facilitate ‘capacity building’ in voluntary and community organisations and so enable them to contribute to the achievement of public and social policy goals. This paper builds on findings from a study of an early ‘capacity-building’ programme delivered between 1998 and 2005. We explore the challenges of implementing such initiatives for voluntary sector intermediary bodies involved in delivering them and for the voluntary and community organisations intended as the main beneficiaries. We conclude with a discussion about the implications for policy implementation.

An education system that is based on the needs of a sedentary community is inherently exclusionary for mobile young people. However, it is increasingly acknowledged that even Gypsy Traveller pupils who have been ‘settled’ for a number of years have limited engagement with the secondary phase of schooling. This paper provides an overview of developments in educational policy that have impacted on educational access for Travellers and draws upon research data generated from a recent five-year study to highlight potential challenges and barriers that continue to hinder their educational achievement. The findings suggest that experience of racism, the impact of cultural dissonance and low teacher expectations may all be contributory factors that affect Gypsy Traveller students’ educational engagement and achievement.

This article examines the institutional arrangements, practices and outcomes related to the recognition of skills, knowledge and competencies (SKC) of non-EU foreign nationals in the Netherlands (commonly referred to as Third Country Nationals (TCNs)) with specific reference to the Dutch healthcare sector. Although the national infrastructure for foreign recognition of educational and professional qualifications is well-developed by international standards, the system has a number of flaws as interviews with TCNs and experts in the field reveal. TCNs often discover that their qualifications are not considered equivalent to the relevant Dutch qualifications. Given the limitations of formally recognising the educational qualifications or work experience of TCNs, Dutch policies have supported other measures, including the accreditation and recognition of prior learning (RPL). However, expert interviews show that it remains a challenge to commit education providers and employers actually to validate these learning experiences. We consider various implications for policy-making and theory from this research.

During the past decade, expectations placed on child welfare services in the UK have moved away from individualised provision geared to meeting the needs of specific children at risk, to consideration of the broader context for children. The introduction of a series of national programmes aimed at addressing social exclusion and tasked with stimulating new approaches to enabling better outcomes for children formed the background for the recent legislation and guidance for local children's services. The Children's Fund was one of a raft of New Labour social policies promoting partnerships between statutory and voluntary organisations in order to address the cross-cutting issue of social exclusion. It was announced following the UK 2000 Spending Review and drew from the Policy Action Team12 (PAT12) Report, ‘Young People at Risk’ (SEU, 2000). Funding started in January 2001 and continues until 2008 with a total allocation during this period of £960 million. Like most special policy initiatives instigated following 1997, the establishment of the Children's Fund was accompanied by both national and local evaluation requirements. The National Evaluation of the Children's Fund (NECF) was undertaken by a team from the Universities of Birmingham and London and this themed section draws on selected findings from that evaluation. Overall results are reported in Edwards et al., (2006).

The article discusses five literature strands’ approaches towards social protection systems in the context of climate crisis: Adaptive Social Protection, Just Transition, Green New Deal, Post-growth, and Eco-feminism. As we argue, these five strands are located on a spectrum between a green growth orientation and a green anti-capitalist orientation. Furthermore, they differ in terms of their problematisation of the climate crisis and have different perspectives on relevant actors, on world regions, and – most relevant in the context of social welfare – their conceptualisation of social protection. While Adaptive Social Protection emphasizes cash transfers and insurances, Green New Deal and Just Transition approaches focus more on redistribution and labour market policies, and Post-growth and Eco-feminist approaches more on universalist policies and systems. We argue that these literatures each have their weaknesses, but also offer urgent questions, concepts, and insights for further social policy research.

This paper explores the strategies of service providers and the benefits reported by disabled children and their parents/carers in three Children's Fund programmes in England. Based on National Evaluation of the Children's Fund research, we discuss how different understandings of ‘inclusion’ informed the diverse strategies and approaches service providers adopted. While disabled children and families perceived the benefits of services predominantly in terms of building individual children's resilience and social networks, the paper highlights the need for holistic approaches which have a broad view of inclusion, support children's networks and tackle disabling barriers within all the spheres of children's lives.

Despite ‘troubled lives’ increasingly coming under the gaze of (powerful) others, our understanding of the issues at hand seems somewhat detached from the experiences of those subject to policy intervention. Due to the deficit model that presents ‘problem families’ as pathological, the voices of those that experience multiple disadvantages and severe material hardship are rarely heard, or, at worst, silenced. Within the context of hardening public attitudes that increasingly vilify the poor, understanding the connection between the personal and public is both timely and valuable. Drawing upon qualitative research, this paper seeks to listen to the voices of young people who currently reside within a ‘troubled family’. Through an exploration of how young people perceive their biographies, their status as ‘troubled’ or troublesome’, their relationships with significant others and their thoughts and feelings towards the future, we are able to recapture and reclaim contemporary depictions of ‘troubled lives’. Uncovering such lived experiences can also act as a springboard through which to explore how young lives (are likely to) unfold when interpreted against the background of restricted opportunities and social censure.

Paid work has traditionally been seen as a core element in the construction of masculine identities. Willis (1977) has, for example, linked working-class masculinity to shop floor culture. It is, however, clear that many communities cannot rely on the stable employment around which familiar models of working-class identity were forged. This paper examines how the male residents of a deprived former council estate in the north of England have responded to the loss of traditional employment opportunities. It is argued that paid informal work has become an important way for some working-class men to express their identity.

This article explores interactions between the front-line officers and recipients of Oportunidades-Prospera, a conditional cash transfer (CCT) in Mexico. Like other CCTs, Oportunidades-Prospera provided monetary transfers to families with the requirement of following certain conditions, including receiving preventive healthcare and workshops. This produced constant and compulsory physician-recipient interactions. This article examines these through observations of programme delivery and interviews with physicians at health centres of two localities of Puebla. The results show that officers’ strategies of implementation and attitudes towards recipients were influenced by the programme’s use of health services as conditionalities, promoting a relationship of authority and obedience. This, however, was exacerbated by the officer’s job position. Those with a permanent contract systematically fostered authoritarian interactions compared to officers with temporary contracts. Ultimately, this study reveals factors that influence officer-recipient relationships in CCTs and their centrality for programme delivery and for the success of social policies more broadly.

Rural post office provision is becoming increasingly reliant on alternative delivery models. The effect of change could fall disproportionately on older people as a key customer group of the Post Office, overrepresented in rural areas. There are only very limited polices in this area. The existing literature has not yet examined where compulsory changes have taken place alongside the impact on older people living in the community. This research uses a mixed methods approach, exploring the example of the 2007–9 Post Office Network Change Programme in England and a case study of older people in a community affected by this change. Very rural areas were vulnerable to post office changes; 70 per cent of changes to post office delivery models occurred in these areas. It is important to consider the impacts of changes more broadly, including both direct and indirect outcomes.

Of all the European welfare states, the UK most clearly represents the liberal regime type – notwithstanding a shift towards ‘social investment’ under New Labour – as defined by its residual, targeted benefit structure and increasingly punitive activation regime. The idiosyncratic institutional characteristics of the UK welfare state give rise to challenges and opportunities with respect to prospects for the introduction of (some form of) basic income. Despite a large and growing population of ‘disaffected’ precarious and low-paid workers and widespread dissatisfaction with the increasingly punitive sanctions regime, significant barriers to the emergence of a sufficiently large and coherent constituency of support for basic income remain. Thus, while institutional inertia and political considerations may preclude anything more than marginal changes to the existing system, a number of policy options falling short of a ‘full’ basic income – but retaining some of its core features – appear relatively feasible.