50th Anniversary Blog Series Archives - Page 5 of 5

Food poverty and Christmas appeals for foodbanks are up this year. The UK needs systemic change.

No 10: Where next for foodbank use?

December 20, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by Kayleigh Garthwaite Tuesday 28 November was the launch of the London Evening Standard’s Christmas appeal, ‘Help a Hungry Child’. Pages 8, 9, 10 and 11 were devoted to the issue. The Felix Project is […]

Microfinance is an example of a social innovation that has benefitted many people around the world.

No 9: Brave new world or second dark age? Social policy and social innovation

December 13, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by Stephen Sinclair It has been estimated that almost half of the jobs in the US could be made redundant by automation and new technologies in the near future. The idea that modern economies undergo successive […]

No 8: Universal Credit: A benefits system to increase debt

December 6, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by Steve Iafrati Narratives explaining poverty as caused by personal failings and poor decisions are nothing new. The characterisation of the likeable but foolish Mr Micawber in Dickens’ David Copperfield has given way to a […]

Investing in apprenticeships is one way the the UK government can boost productivity post-Brexit, says Peter Taylor-Gooby.

No 7: Brexit won’t work without a new welfare state

November 29, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by Peter Taylor-Gooby We stand on the brink of a new golden age of the welfare state. As the UK staggers towards Brexit, it is becoming increasingly obvious that separation from the EU, however accomplished, […]

David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, spoke out after the Grenfell Tower fire, and argued for the importance of 'bringing back the social.'

No 6: Back to the future? Reclaiming the social after Grenfell Tower

November 22, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by John Clarke The Grenfell Tower fire has shaken many aspects of the prevailing British political culture. Most strikingly for me, in the aftermath of the fire, Tottenham MP David Lammy gave an interview in […]

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights leaders met with President Lyndon Johnson, who launched the war on poverty, at the White House in 1964.

No 5: Where do we go from here? Fifty years on from the ‘War on Poverty’

November 15, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator Comments Off

by Stephen Crossley In 1967, Martin Luther King began work on a book titled ‘Where Do We Go from Here?’, in which he argued that the choice was between ‘chaos or community’. The book, published […]

Fiona Willaims pays tribute to victims of terrorism and the Grenfell Tower fire with her poem As If.

No 4: As if: After Manchester, London Bridge, Grenfell Tower

November 8, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator 0

by Fiona Williams For weeks I’ve been grabbed by the throat: deep sobs that hijack the roll out of sleep, gasping for air as if those dying were mine as if the mums and […]

No 3: Why the two-child policy is the worst social security policy ever

November 1, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator 3

by Jonathan Bradshaw What is the worst social security policy ever? There are many competitors for this accolade in our history — less eligibility in 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, the 1934 Unemployment Assistance Board […]

Adrian Sinfield speaks about the history of the Social Policy Association at the organisation's 50th anniversary celebration at the House of Lords in October 2017.

No. 2: ‘Making hope possible rather than despair convincing’: The first 50 years of the Social Policy Association

October 27, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator 0

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 […]

What can the field of social policy learn from the Grenfell Fire tragedy? Ruth Lister reflects in her presidential address to the Social Policy Association in July 2017.

No 1: The power of hope in the face of injustice: reflections on Grenfell

October 16, 2017 S-P-A-Administrator 2

Address of Baroness Ruth Lister, Chair of the SPA, to our annual conference held at The University of Durham, July 2017. Four weeks prior to the Social Policy Association’s 50th anniversary AGM an unknown number […]