Welcome to Social Policy Digest
Welcome to the Social Policy Digest Online. The Digest is designed as a key resource for all those working in UK social policy — policymakers, researchers, teachers and students, campaigners, journalists, and practitioners. It provides an easily accessible listing of new developments across the whole social policy field.
The Digest is a companion to two journals — the Journal of Social Policy and Social Policy and Society — both of which are published on behalf of the Social Policy Association by Cambridge University Press.
- Skills for life learning – impact evaluation
A study found that taking a literacy or numeracy course at college could improve adults' self-esteem, might improve their health, increased their independence, and improved their ability to conduct a wide range of everyday activities. It could also set adults on the path to further learning.
Source: Hilary Metcalf et al., Evaluation of the Impact of Skills for Life Learning: Longitudinal survey of adult learners on college-based literacy and numeracy courses, final report, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (0870 150 2500)
Links:Report | DBIS press release | NIACE press release
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Strategy for NHS reform based on public involvement
A report said that the National Health Service could save over £20 billion by 2014 if clinicians and patients were given the right to design healthcare services, and through more effective approaches to public behaviour change. However, these approaches were difficult to develop within the existing health service: there was a need to move away from centrally driven directives, and to place the challenge and responsibility in the hands of the public.
Source: Laura Bunt and Michael Harris, The Human Factor: How transforming healthcare to involve the public can save money and save lives, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (020 7438 2500)
Links:Report | NESTA press release
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Council tax benefit to be renamed
The government announced that it would rename council tax benefit as 'council tax rebate' as part of a campaign to encourage pensioners to claim the help they were entitled to.
Source: Press release 6 November 2009, Department for Work and Pensions (020 7712 2171)
Links:DWP press release
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Social geography of Sheffield
A report examined the changing social geography of Sheffield (England's fourth largest city), and the disparities in social outcomes between different areas within it.
Source: Bethan Thomas, John Pritchard, Dimitris Ballas, Dan Vickers and Danny Dorling, A Tale of Two Cities: The Sheffield Project, Social & Spatial Inequalities Research Group/Department of Geography/University of Sheffield
Links: Report | Sheffield Telegraph report
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Commission on the Future for Housing in Northern Ireland
An independent commission published a report (for consultation) analyzing the issues and challenges facing the Northern Ireland Housing system. The housing system had played a key role in shaping communities and improving lives during a very difficult time in Northern Ireland's history: but it was now in need of radical reform. There was a need for a long-term strategy for housing, a greater role for tenants, changes to the system of oversight for housing, and new forms of investment.
Source: The Future for Housing in Northern Ireland: A key issues paper from the Independent Commission, Commission on the Future for Housing in Northern Ireland
Links: Report | Commission press release | CIH press release | New Start report
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Role of scrutiny/audit/inspection in tackling recession
A report examined ways in which audit, inspection, and scrutiny bodies could tackle policy areas on which the recession was having an impact, and sought to demonstrate how scrutiny could add value in the context of constrained budgets.
Source: Ed Hammond with Adam Pickering, Global Challenge, Local Solutions: The role of scrutiny, audit and inspection in tackling the recession, Centre for Public Scrutiny (020 7296 6595)
Links:Report | Summary
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Contemporary social identities – new book
A new book examined the contemporary patterning of identities based on class and community, gender and generation, 'race', faith and ethnicity, and derived from popular culture. The contributors explored debates about social change, individualization, and the re-making of social class. They considered the evidence for new 'convivial multicultures' in ethnically diverse urban metropolitan centres, and the manifestations of more 'fragile' white identities in the provinces.
Source: Margaret Wetherell (ed.), Identity in the 21st Century: New trends in changing times, Palgrave Macmillan (01256 329242)
Links:Summary | Guardian report
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Discrimination against BME teachers
A study found that over one-half of all black and minority-ethnic teachers felt that they had been discriminated against during their careers. Most were keen to progress into leadership positions and develop their careers: but issues of workload, a lack of self-confidence, and discrimination were significant barriers.
Source: Olwen McNamara, John Howson, Helen Gunter and Andrew Fryers, The Leadership Aspirations and Careers of Black and Minority Ethnic Teachers, National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (0121 453 6150) and National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services
Links:Report | Summary | NASUWT press release | Guardian report
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Role of financial services industry in funding long-term care for elderly
A paper examined the potential role of the financial services industry in providing a long-term, sustainable solution to the problem of funding long-term care for the elderly.
Source: Les Mayhew, The Role of Private Finance in Paying for Long Term Care in an Ageing Society, City of London
Links: Paper | City of London press release
Date Created: 07 Nov 2009
- Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) to be compulsory after age 15
The government announced (following a review and consultation) that personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) would became a statutory part of the national curriculum from 2011, with sex and relationship education forming a key part of the subject. Parents would have the right to withdraw their children from sex education up to the age of 15 (rather than 19 previously). A linked study found that most parents did not feel there should be any parental right to withdraw children and young people from sex and relationships education at all.
Source: House of Commons Hansard, Written Ministerial Statement 5 November 2009, columns 49-52WS, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links:Personal, Social, Health And Economic Education: Curriculum reform consultation report to the DCSF, Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency | Sherbert Research, Customer Voice Research: Sex and Relationships Education, Research Report RR175, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Hansard | DCSF press release | Consultation report | Research report | SEF press release | YWCA press release | UKYP press release | NASUWT press release | NAT press release | SPUC press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | BBC report
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Rising unemployment creates new child poverty crisis
- Professionals 'missing opportunities' to help trafficked children
A report said that children and young people trafficked into the United Kingdom, or exploited after their arrival, were struggling to get help from authorities responsible for their welfare.
Source: Laura Wirtz with Myfanwy Franks, Fran Johnson and Lisa Nandy, Hidden Children: Separated children at risk, Children's Society (020 7841 4415)
Links:Report | Summary | Children's Society press release | Community Care report
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- New forecasts for child obesity
New forecasts for 2020 suggested that the rate of obesity among boys in England would be 13 per cent (instead of 20 per cent previously predicted). The predicted obesity rate among girls had fallen from 14 per cent to 10 per cent.
Source: Martin Brown, Tom Byatt, Tim Marsh and Klim McPherson, Obesity Trends for Children Aged 2-11: Analysis from the Health Survey for England 1993-2007, National Heart Forum (020 7383 7638)
Links: Report | Summary | NHF press release
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Public health and fear of crime
An article examined the relationship between public health and fear of crime. Although fear of crime might express a whole set of social and political anxieties, there was a 'core' to worry about crime that was implicated in real cycles of decreased health and perceived vulnerability to victimization.
Source: Jonathan Jackson and Mai Stafford, 'Public health and fear of crime: a prospective cohort study', British Journal of Criminology, Volume 49 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Anti-social behaviour strategy 'eroding' criminal justice principles
An article said that regulatory ideas associated with the government's strategy to tackle anti-social behaviour were being used to circumvent and erode established criminal justice principles, notably those of due process, proportionality, and the special protections traditionally afforded to young people.
Source: Adam Crawford, 'Governing through anti-social behaviour: regulatory challenges to criminal justice', British Journal of Criminology, Volume 49 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Regulation of conduct by social landlords
An article examined the spatial dimensions of social landlords' attempts to influence people's behaviour, and to map the range of technologies and measures utilized by social landlords on to particular urban spaces.
Source: John Flint and Hal Pawson, 'Social landlords and the regulation of conduct in urban spaces in the United Kingdom', Criminology and Criminal Justice, Volume 9 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Increasing number of racially aggravated charges
An article examined the increase in the number of racially aggravated charges brought courts in England and Wales since the implementation of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act.
Source: David Gadd, 'Aggravating racism and elusive motivation', British Journal of Criminology, Volume 49 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Needs of victims and witnesses – Victims' Champion report
A study by the independent Victims' Champion examined how frontline services met the needs of victims and witnesses. Victims needed to be considered in terms of the total impact of the crime committed against them and their individual needs arising from this impact – in contrast to the existing system that tailored services to victims in terms of the type of offence committed against them and how to successfully apprehend the offender.
Source: Sara Payne, Redefining Justice: Addressing the individual needs of victims and witnesses, Ministry of Justice (020 7210 8500)
Links:Report | CJS press release | Police Federation press release | Guardian report
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Call for reform of criminal justice system
A think-tank report said that the centralization of the criminal justice system over the previous ten years had been an 'expensive failure'. In chasing national headlines and targets, government-controlled agencies had not addressed the problem of crime in deprived communities, where it was most acute. The report recommended policies designed to restore power over crime and justice to local political communities; and to give the courts the authority both to order more tailored, structured sentences and to ensure that these sentences were translated into practice.
Source: Order in the Courts: Restoring trust through local justice, Centre for Social Justice (020 7620 1120)
Links:Report | Summary | Speech | Guardian report
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
- Prisoner information system – report by MPs
A report by a committee of MPs said that an information technology project for tracking offenders in England and Wales through the criminal justice system was a 'shambles'. Officials in charge of the scheme – abandoned after costs trebled - lacked even a 'minimum level of competence'.
Source: The National Offender Management Information System, Fortieth Report (Session 2008-09), HC 510, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links:Report | BBC report
Date Created: 06 Nov 2009
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