Search

Iain Duncan Smith resigned as the UK's Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in March 2016. While not invisible from the debate following his resignation, the fact that changes to social security policy for disabled people were central to Duncan Smith's time as Secretary of State and central to his (at least public) reasons for resignation was lost in a focus on the internal machinations of the UK's Conservative Party. In this short article, Duncan Smith's resignation is used to examine the location of additional cost social security benefits for disabled people in Conservative thinking in contemporary Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adjustments to working arrangements and the working environment have enabled organisations to recruit and retain valuable staff and helped disabled individuals to work and progress in their careers. The qualitative study reported in this paper indicates that generally good adjustments-related practice across 33 British local authorities was beginning to deteriorate under the impact of government spending cuts; and was at further risk from the dismantling of legal protections. The findings have implications for local authorities, but also for national policy-makers and those wishing to influence them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is it so hard for the Left to produce a coherent, progressive and practicable response to the crisis, when markets and private enterprise have so obviously failed? One answer is that the Left faces a trilemma in developing adequate, electable and progressive public policy. It must respond adequately to the economic crisis to be seen as competent, it must address the established themes in public opinion to be electable, and it must develop generous and inclusive policies, to be progressive. This article identifies conflicts in all three areas: low public sector productivity growth and demographic shifts tighten already harsh spending constraints. Entrenched public suspicions of higher taxes for any but the distant rich and a public discourse which makes rigid distinctions between those deserving and undeserving of state welfare conflict with egalitarian or redistributive policies. Both spending constraints and the key themes in public opinion conflict with generous and inclusive policies. The Coalition strategy, by contrast, rests on a private enterprise-led recovery, work-ethic values and policies that exclude less deserving groups. It does not face the same problems. This article analyses a range of policy programmes suggested by commentators on the centre-left in the light of these points. It concludes that a central task for a progressive strategy is not so much designing the policies which will be attractive and will meet needs effectively as developing a framework of provision which will help to build solidarity and shift public discourse in order to make inclusive and generous policy possible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article details research carried out as part of an MA in Social Research at the University of Leeds (UK). The research was concerned with two key issues: documenting the impact of recent cuts in benefits and services on disabled people; and the role of disabled people’s organisations in responding to this impact. It also explored the use of social media in recruiting research participants. Working with Hammersmith and Fulham Action on Disability, the experiences of 95 disabled people were gathered using focus groups and an online questionnaire distributed via social media. The use of social media to gather participants is something I felt was particularly interesting in relation to disabled people, especially in light of social media’s role in current disability rights campaigns, and a method I feel should be explored further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The return of austerity has provoked social conflict, political controversy and academic disputes. In this article we explore some of these through the metaphor of an ‘alchemy of austerity’ that forms the foundation for strategies of state retrenchment through which the consent of populations is sought. We begin, in ‘Magical thinking’, by tracing some of the discursive repertoires that circulate in analyses of austerity, showing something of its significance as a key term being mobilized in different international and national political discourses. We then go on to explore political strategies, with a particular focus on the UK in ‘Sharing the pain’. However, we suggest that such a focus offers a limited conception of politics that fails to illuminate the contradictory field of political forces put into motion by austerity strategies. This field of forces, we go on to argue, crystallizes around the problem of securing consent. In ‘Austerity and the problem of consent’ we examine this further, pointing to the proliferation of different forms of dissent and their relationship to austerity measures. We end by tracing shifting articulations of the moral and the economic by revisiting E.P. Thompson’s concept of ‘moral economy’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since being elected in May 2010, the coalition government in the United Kingdom has announced spending cuts that by 2014/15, it is estimated, will save the state £81 billion per annum. It announced the cuts in two exercises - an 'emergency Budget' in June 2010 and a Comprehensive Spending Review in October 2010. In this paper we focus on one aspect of the cuts - those related to social security and tax credit spending. The paper examines the scale and nature of the cuts by focusing on the indexation and capping of benefits, making benefits more selective and the fate of contributory benefits in the cuts. The paper argues that the package of cuts to benefits and tax credits represents themes - constraining expenditure by restricting increases in, and the eligibility criteria for, benefits - that are familiar in social security policy. The consequence will be the long-term erosion of the scope and value of social security benefits and tax credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers an analysis on the distributional effects of the public spending cuts in Great Britain in 2010. It says that cuts to higher and further education, which amount to 27%, and to social care and social housing, which total 24% and 20%, respectively, have more cash impact on poorer households. However, it states that the cuts on transport spending have more effect on richer households. Moreover, it suggests that poorer households lose 30% of services equal to their average income.

This article considers the effects of UK government cuts across the housing, care and support sector on vulnerable people. The article urges that the human and financial costs of savings are fully considered, as these could outweigh the short-term financial savings. The article also sets out what the National Housing Federation is doing to urge the government to consider the impact of the cuts on vulnerable people in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]