The purpose of this article is to draw on Le Grand's (2007) model of service provision of ends and means (trust, targets, voice and choice) to critique the accepted frameworks for conceptualising the chronology of equal opportunities and diversity (EO&D) in the UK. We do this by reviewing the attempts to provide a chronological analysis before outlining and applying Le Grand's (2007) model. We find that the ‘eras’ of the chronologies give way to a much more complex and fluid picture. Moreover, focusing on ends and means highlights some major issues in the development of EO&D policy that needs to be addressed.

Financial education is viewed by both policy makers and the public as an increasingly important tool for developing financially capable citizens in an era of increasing individual financial responsibility. This paper considers the recent history of school involvement in teaching financial education. It then draws on research undertaken in summer 2010 at two Birmingham primary schools to explore children's understandings of key financial issues. The paper concludes that there appears to be a groundswell of momentum behind making financial education a compulsory part of the National Curriculum, but, even if this happens, there will be challenges in delivering such education in practice. For example, the role of values in financial education makes it a contested subject and teachers will need training and support to deal with this. They will also need to be supported to deliver financial education in a way which recognises diversity and sensitivity issues in the classroom.

Improvements in offender healthcare are key to the current UK Government's reform of the criminal justice system and the aims of reducing reoffending and protecting the public. Current approaches to offender health care emphasise the importance of ‘continuity of care’. Reference to the ‘offender health pathway’ suggests the existence of seamless delivery and experience of care; however, evidence suggests these remain some way off. This research explores prison health discharge planning in four North East prisons and uncovers elements of good practice, but also a number of challenges the prisons continue to face in their attempts to improve clinical pathways for prisoners being released or transferred, including institutional, staffing and prisoner issues. These challenges need to be acknowledged and addressed if robust discharge planning and continuity of care at the end of the offender health pathway is to be achieved.

Qualitative data were deployed to explore the spatial needs of homeless drug users staying in hostels and night shelters. Findings indicated that Fitzpatrick and LaGory's four categories of spatial need (‘privacy’, ‘personal space’, ‘social interaction’, ‘safe and defensible spaces’) all had good analytical purchase. However, three further need categories (‘institutional support’, ‘amenities and standards’, ‘spatiotemporal structures and boundaries’) were identified. While hostels and night shelters met the spatial needs of some homeless drug users, there was considerable scope for improvement; indeed, failure to meet spatial needs could result in increased drug use, risky injecting practices, worsening health and a return to the streets. Our seven-fold categorisation of spatial needs requires further empirical study but could potentially inform other place-based approaches to health.

European welfare states have a tradition of compensating for social risks. But across Europe, remarkable transformations may be observed that shift the focus from a needs/rights based compensatory approach towards a more individualistic ‘social risk management’ approach to welfare (see Schmid, 2006; Abrahamson, 2010). The basic idea of social risk management is that citizens have their own responsibility for preventing social risks. The ‘new’ welfare state mirrors this approach by adopting the role of equipping individual citizens for this task. The concept of the ‘new welfare state’ has been discussed under different labels, including ‘positive welfare’ (Giddens, 1998), ‘enabling welfare’ (Gilbert, 2002), ‘new welfare’ (Taylor-Gooby, 2008) and ‘social investment state’ (Engelen et al., 2007).

In this article we critically assess the social investment perspective that has become the dominant paradigm in European social policymaking. We identify and discuss some of its shortcomings that may hamper social progress for all. In doing so, we focus on three pillars central to the idea of social investment: social inclusion through work, individual responsibility and human capital investment. We find that the social investment perspective has some serious flaws when it comes to the social protection of vulnerable groups. This is strongly related to the continuing relevance of social class in explaining and remedying social inequalities. We conclude that investment cannot be the only rationale for welfare state intervention and that protecting people should remain equally high on the policy agenda.

The global financial crisis across Europe has created great societal demands. Social inclusion has become one of the main challenges of the millennium with those hit hardest being the most vulnerable people. It is at such times that it becomes crucial to provide positive welfare. This article presents research results from a transnational study, INCLUD-ED, an FP6 project of the European Commission, which focuses on educational practices promoting social cohesion as a form of positive welfare. The research focuses on six successful schools in five countries that have demonstrated that they can transform children's academic performance as well as have an impact on the community itself. A number of positive transformative approaches beyond better academic performance included a spill over of benefits to the schools’ neighbouring communities and an increase in social cohesion and community in health, housing, employment and social and political participation was also identified.

The notion of ‘governance’ is often studied from a public management perspective and is associated with the image of a modest or even retreating state. However, ‘governance’ can also be studied from a political perspective, which focuses on issues of power and interests in governance practices. This shifts attention from a modest state to the techniques governments use to step into society and influence citizen behaviour. Whether in crime policy, youth policy or public health policy, traditional government techniques such as penalising behaviour or compensating harm are complemented by governance techniques to manage citizen responsibility and solidarity in the face of social risks.

This article deals with the question of how politicians and governments publicly frame and legitimise a new realm of state intervention dedicated to enticing, persuading and nudging citizens to ‘take responsibility’ in producing public value. An analysis of Dutch political discourse in the first decade of the twenty-first century reveals the mechanisms by which government justifies its new approach to social issues. The traditional connotations of the notions ‘responsibility’ and ‘solidarity’ are transformed in order to mobilise citizens and approach them as both part of the problem and part of the solution to various social issues. An analysis of Dutch youth policy shows how this brings about a politicisation of citizen behaviour and implicates citizens as co-operators of political will formation.

In the current economic and financial crisis, many European governments are debating cuts in healthcare costs. These debates, on the one hand, have a financial perspective, with cutting healthcare costs the highest ambition. On the other hand, they also have a moral perspective, for example when dealing with the coverage of lifestyle related health risks like binge drinking or smoking. Increasingly, the ideas of ‘positive’ or ‘new’ welfare are included in this discussion. Promoting a healthy lifestyle is stimulated or even financially rewarded in many domains of European welfare states, including healthcare (Department of Health, 2004; Jochelson, 2007; Fenger, 2009, 2011; Oliver and Brown, 2011; English, 2012).

The welfare state is one of the hallmarks of a civilised society. All developed countries have them and the less developed ones are striving to establish their own. Welfare states depend on a fair collection and redistribution of resources, which in turn rests upon the maintenance of trust between different sections of society and across generations. Misleading rhetoric concerning those who have to seek support from the welfare state, such as the contrast between ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’, risks undermining that trust and, with it, one of the key foundations of modern Britain. (Alcock et al., 2013)