Social Policy Association

The professional association for lecturers, researchers and students of social policy in the UK and internationally

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50th Anniversary Blog Series

2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the SPA. To celebrate this milestone we commissioned 50 blog posts from leading experts in the field, edited by Kevin Farnsworth and Zoe Irving. You can read all 50 of these posts below.
 
“Social policy matters. Rigorous, independent, robust study of it matters, as does teaching the next generation to be more policy-literate. At 50 the SPA is as important to all of these as ever, helping to develop, integrate and safeguard the subject and its members and contribute to better social policies.”
(50 words to mark 50 years, Adrian Sinfield)
Disability living allowance and personal independence payment do not foster independence, but rather dependence.

No 30: Disabled people’s independence: the underfunding and commodification of support

May 14, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Kirstein Rummery Social policy has always distinguished between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ in responses to need. When the post-war welfare settlement was decided, the […]

'The Cathedral' is under attack by the alt-right and alt-light, and we who work within it have a duty to take this seriously and respond in kind.

No 29: In and outside the ‘Cathedral’: a challenge for social policy

May 8, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Nick Ellison Irrespective of our particular academic specialisms, the great majority of us — I’ll get to the ‘us’ later — who work in […]

Citizens' wealth funds have worked to return wealth to the public and balance inequality in many places. Can it work in the UK?

No 28: The people’s stake – could a UK citizens’ wealth fund tackle the inequality crisis?

April 30, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Stewart Lansley Politicians huff and puff, declare their principled opposition to the widening income gap but take no action. UK inequality levels are much […]

Research shows that the British middle and upper classes have taken more in welfare in recent years than have the working class.

No 27: Social security reforms have channelled welfare towards the rich: what research and policy agenda does this set?

April 23, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Daniel Edmiston Seventy years ago, the National Assistance Act was passed as the final piece of the legislative jigsaw that saw the establishment of […]

Personal independence payment, or PIP, has proved disastrous for mental health patients.

No 26: Personal Independence Payment – a fair deal for people with mental health problems?

April 16, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Richard Machin ‘U-turn’, ‘Fiasco’, ‘Chaos’ – Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has been back in the news at the start of 2018 and the headlines […]

Conditional Cash Transfer or CCT programmes can do more harm than good.

No 25: The hidden injuries of conditional cash transfer programs

April 9, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Gerardo Arriaga 2018 marks the 21st anniversary of the first-of-its-kind Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program worldwide — a program that aims to alleviate poverty […]

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No 24: Social insecurity: a new consensus is needed to return security to the system

April 3, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 1

by Sarah Batty ‘Putting the security back into Social Security’ was the title of a series of national solution-focused workshops held in 2017 in which […]

The recent USS Pension Strike in the UK has revealed the ways in which private firms profit from higher education and how the marketisation of education is turning both universities and students into debtors.

No 23: Welfare to Debtfare: Who benefits from the marketisation of higher education in the UK?

March 26, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Antonios Roumpakis The recent strike over the University Superannuation Scheme (USS) exposed how university finances are undermined by the continuing marketisation of higher education. […]

Children in the UK are more vulnerable to hunger than in other EU nations.

No 22: Making hunger a thing of the past: an urgent priority for contemporary social policy research

March 19, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Hannah Lambie-Mumford and Rachel Loopstra Beveridge identified ‘want’ as one of his five evils, yet 70 years of social policy later,  we are confronted […]

How social scientists define and study poverty has changed greatly over the last 50 years.

No 21: 50 years of poverty studies: how our ideas of poverty have changed

March 12, 2018 S-P-A-Administrator 3

by Paul Spicker There are times when social scientists simply get hold of the wrong end of things. When Charles Booth did his research on […]

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Recent Posts

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  • Blog: The Hidden Economic Toll of Care Across Europe
  • SPA Members Appointed as Fellows to the Academy of Social Sciences
  • Digitising Social Protections: Exclusion and Barriers in Jordan’s ‘Takaful’ Programme
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