Social Policy

Utopia • Utopia hopes that our

judgement will make and to use it as best we can to judge what is wrong in our society in the hope that our judgement will make us do some things right, even if we cannot make all things new this side of paradise.

• Richard Marius – Utopia as mirror for a life and times March 1995

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)

Social Policy•Developed in the early 20th Century the principle areas relate to;

•Policy and administrative practice in social services, including health administration, social security, education, employment services, community care and housing management;

•Social problems, including crime, disability, unemployment, mental health, learning disability and old age;

•Issues relating to social disadvantage, including race, gender and poverty;

•The range of collective responses to these conditions

Social PolicyShaftesbury Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of (1801-85), English philanthropist and social reformer. A dominant figure of the 19th-century social reform movement, he inspired much of the legislation designed to improve conditions for the large working class created as a result of the Industrial Revolution. His reforms included the introduction of the ten-hour working day (1847).

Beveridge William Henry, 1st Baron (1879–1963), British economist and social reformer, born in India. He was chairman of the committee which prepared the Beveridge Report, which formed the basis of much of the social legislation on which the welfare state in the UK is founded.

Social Policy

Who are today’s social reformers?

Social Policy

A policy

A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual: the government's controversial economic policies it is not company policy to dispense with our older workers.

Social Policy

Social Policy

Social policies aim to improve human welfare, though this is not always the case, and to meet human needs for education, health, housing and social security.

Social Policy and Scripture

What examples are there in the Bible of Policies being established?

Are there any policies that are mirrored by present day society?

How does scripture say we should respond to decisions of the Government?

Social Policy

•To the policies which governments use for welfare and social protection

•To the ways in which welfare is developed in a society, and

•To the academic study of the subject

The name social policy is used to apply;

Social Policy•Social policy is particularly concerned with social services and the welfare state•Stands for a wide range of issues extending far beyond the actions of government

•Means by which welfare is promoted

•Social and economic conditions which shape the development of welfare

Context of Social PolicyAn historical perspective helps us to understand the present climate of social policy and may lead us to speculate on the future.

For our study let us look at social policy from 1834 (arbitrary decision). This was when for the first time the Government became permanently involved on the welfare stage with the New Poor Law followed by public health, employment, education.

Early 20th century saw the Liberal governments armed with new thinking in social policy established the roots of what was to become the Beveridge report in 1942.

Context of Social PolicyWelfare;commonly refers to ‘well-being’. In welfare economics, welfare is understood in terms of people’s well-being or interests consist of things they choose to have.

range of services which are provided to protect people in a number of conditions, including childhood, sickness and old age. The idea of the ‘welfare state’ is an example. This is the equivalent term to ‘social protection' in the EU.

in the USA, welfare refers specifically to financial assistance to poor people. This usage is generally not reflected elsewhere.

Context of Social Policy

The distinctions between the developments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is an arbitrary choice but it is generally agreed that many of the adopted ideas of the Liberal governments of the early twentieth century were the results of the process of debate carried on in the previous century.

Context of Social PolicyArguments for Welfare

•Humanitarian

•Religious

•Mutual self-interest

•Democratic

•Practical

Context of Social PolicyArguments against welfare

•People have absolute rights to use property as they wish

•People do not consent to welfare provision

•The rights of the individual are paramount

Context of Social Policy The late John Smith’s Commission on Social Justice

says in its paper The Justice Gap (1993) the following principles;

·  The foundation of a free society is the equal worth of all its citizens;

·  Everyone is entitled, as a right of citizenship, to be able to meet their basic needs;

·  The right to self-respect and personal autonomy demands the widest possible spread of opportunities;

·  Not all equalities are unjust, but unjust equalities should be reduced and where possible eliminated.

Context of Social PolicyT The Purpose of Social PolicyT The Social Policy Programme at the Institute for Public Policy

Research(IPPR) declared its aims as being: ·  To promote equity so that everyone has an equal chance in life:

since individuals have diverse and varying needs, policy should aim to facilitate the just distribution of advantage and risk;

·  To redistribute power among citizens so that everyone is able to determine and shape their own lives, as far is compatible with the freedom of others to do the same;

·  To encourage shared responsibility for a common future: the well being of every individual is inextricably bound up with that of others – within and between families, neighbourhoods, generations and different ethnic and social groups;

·  To maximise economic efficiency: social policy should aim to achieve the best value for money and help create conditions for a thriving economy to underpin a health society. (IPPR, 1994)