Social Policy Themes and Issues - Coursework Example

Running Head: Social Policy – Themes and Issues Social Policy – Themes and Issues s Introduction The following paper aims to discuss different aspects of the social policy in United Kingdom. In this regard, the paper focuses upon the changes occurred within the national health and housing policy during last few decades. The paper also differentiates between the welfare state and the social policy and describes the characteristics of liberal welfare state. The change in the size and use of public social expenditure and the role of working class in shaping the British social policy is also discussed in the paper. A. (1) Major Change in the national health policy during last 20 years The direction of the National Health Service was changed in 1990s after the induction of the concept of the community care in UK national healthcares sector. An important development took place in the history of NHS was outlined in the 1989 White paper, that tuned in to the NHS and Community care act in 1990 (Pollock and Majeed, 1995). In 1990s legislation, the NHS and Community Care Act implemented a new policy that asks the local authority social services department to focus upon the community care. In 1994, the House of Lords discussed the Peckham medical central that proposes a multigenerational family club to serve the inhabitants to the local catchment areas against small membership fee and agreement. The government also created a voucher system for the poor elderly people and their families that they could use to get healthcare services at the nursing homes of their choice. The objective of these initiates was to prevent the loss of the public funds by the way of social security findings. (Means and Smith, 1994) The local authorities were made the rationing agents to curb the government expenditures on healthcare. As a result of this policy change, the government decided not to directly provide the healthcare service to the people but they were directed to get it through the independent voluntary and private commercial sector. The 1990 NHS and Community care act call for the contract with the general practitioners GPs. This step was intended to increase the responsiveness of the service to the consumers and to improve the overall healthcare services available to the people. The community based healthcare service was introduced with the intention to increase competitiveness and to foster the innovation in the sector (Pollock and Majeed, 1995). Moreover, this policy also worked to end the monopolistic influence of some hospitals over the entire healthcare system. In sum, it can be said that the most important change occurred to the National Health Service – NHS during the last twenty years in the implementation of the concept of community care within the healthcare sector that result in new contracts with the GPs. A (2) Account for changes and continuities in housing policy since 1979 With the establishment of the government of the Conservatives in 1979 in UK, there were some major trends induced in to the housing policy of the country. The Conservatives were in favour of privatization and after 1979 the privatization program was initiated in the housing sector as well that bring competition in the sector. The Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) was introduced to enable an active role of the private companies in the sector. On 3rd of October, 1980 the Housing Act was implemented by the government that allow the council tenants to exercise their right to buy. As a result, more than 400,000 people buy their homes by 1982. The scheme was further extended to tenants in the leasehold properties (Hunter and Selman, 1996). The privatization within the sector was promoted throughout the tenure of the conservative government. In 1987, after taking power for the third time, the Thatcher government produced a Housing White Paper (HMSO, 1987) that liberalized the council tenants through the Right to Buy. This decision was further supported by a parallel strategy that was given the name of “right to rent”. On average there were 200,000 new homes were built each year during the term of the conservative government. Since 1979, the right to but housing policy reduced the role of the council housing in United Kingdom and the private housing associations are given the change through legislation to built social housing for the people. Thus, the major change occurred within the housing policy is the encouragement and legal authentication to the private sector to play active role in the construction of the housing facilities (Walsh, et al, 1997). This policy promoted the concept of social housing and discouraged the council housing. Up till now, the housing sector of United Kingdom is being operated with the same policy direction. B. (1) difference between welfare state and social policy A welfare state is supposed to be a system where the welfare of the citizens is considered the primary responsibility of the state. In a welfare state the government works along with the independent and voluntary services to assure the provision of different services to the people (Paul, 2000). The government has to take care about the protection of the social as well as the economic well being of the people living within the boundaries of the state and for this; it has to provide them the basic services like healthcare, housing and employment etc. Social policy, on the other hand, is the name given to the guidelines and principles that assure the provision of different social services to the people. The social polices basically remain concern with the social issues and address different social problem encountered by the people (Dean, 2006). The above understanding about the welfare state and the social system reveals that the welfare system is a model of governance aims to provide economic and social well bring to the people whereas the social policy is a tool of assuring the provision of the social services to the people. The social policy proposes solution to the social problems that in turn help the governments in providing the welfare governance to the people. Thus, it can be said that the welfare state and the social policy are two different but interrelated concepts. The welfare state needs social policy that can address the core social problems of the people and assure their well being that is the major responsibility of the government of a welfare state. (2) Britain social policy shaped by minorities The social policy of a country is ideally supposed to address all the groups present within the system. The minorities being an important part of the British society have played an important role in determining the social policy structure of the country. They usually enjoy privileged position in Britain because in the social policy they have been given adequate rights. However, it was not an easy issue to decide the rights of the minorities in the prevailing social system (David, 2001). In fact, it was a great challenge for the policy makers of UK to allocate due rights to the minorities so that they can be accompanied in the system effectively. Due to the influence of the minorities upon the British social policies, the system is supposed to more culturally and ethnically diverse. In practice, there are many weaknesses observed in the social system of Britain regarding the rights of minorities and it is believed that the minorities often face discrimination on the ethnic grounds. Some of the research studies conducted around the topic disclose that the unemployment rate of the minorities use to be double as compared with that of the majority group, i.e. white British. In different segments of UK labour market, the social policy seems fail to address the issue of the rights of the minorities and most of the times, it is found that the minority employees are under paid or less paid as compared with the Whites. As a result, they manage to maintain a low level or poor living standard that is features by low quality of healthcare service and education facilities. It implies that the minorities have not played a very significant role in determining the social policy of Britain because many of the social facilities are inaccessible for them. (3) Characteristics of liberal welfare state The liberal welfare state is the one that emphasises mainly upon the low income working class and take initiatives mainly for their well being and support. The high income groups are not included in the policy matters made within the liberal welfare state as it proposes a politically powerful middle commercial class that have a dominant role to play in the market. In such state there is encouragement for the anti-state political thoughts and acts because most of the times the liberal welfare states are weak and consist of protestant traditions (Christopher, 2006). The society is highly unequal because there is clear classification of the distinct social classes due to which this state is also refer as two class society. The qualities of the social and economical services are generally very low for the poor people that also act as a reason behind their protestant attitudes. In sum, it can be said that the government is supposed to have the responsibility of providing the facilities to the people but in the liberal welfare state the low and middle income classes are encouraged to become more powerful because these people belong to the working class and endow their hard work and efforts for the society. There are generally criticism being done of the government and people use to protest against different policies that they think support the high income group only. (4) Changes in the size and use of public social expenditure in the UK over the last 30years During the last thirty years, there have been considerable changes observed in the size and use of the public social expenditure in UK. It is mainly due to the fact that the government has implemented the phenomenon of community care and welfare state in the country that significantly reduces the expenditures from the public funding. The concept of the community care was introduced by the Conservative government with the intention to curb the public fund spending (Ann, 1996) and up to some extent the policy was successful and there was decline in the spending of the public funds that help in maintaining its size. However, the policy does not proved to be completely successful and experts believe that some of the social care entities like NHS and educational department made use of the public social funds because as a part of a welfare state, they have to assure the provision of these facilities to the masses (Bochel, 2005). The government during the last thirty years took the step to tight their expenditures to manage money for spending on different national needs and as a result of these efforts also, there was some decline observed in the expenditures of the public social funding and its size is increased over the time period of thirty years. References Ann L. Wall (1996), Health Care Systems in Liberal Democracies, Routledge Bochel, H. (2005), Social Policy: Issues and Development, Oxford University Press. Christopher Pierson (2006), beyond the welfare state: the new political economy of welfare, Polity, 2006 Dean, H. (2006). Social Policy, Cambridge: Polity Press David Gladstone (2001), Social Policy at Fifty: Post-war to Post Modern, Work, Employment & Society (2001), 15:3:653-659 Cambridge University Press, BSA Publications Limited Hunter, C. and Selman, A. (1996) Compulsory Competitive Tendering of Housing Management, Lemos and Crane Means R. & Smith R. (1994), Community Care Policy and Practice, London: Macmillan Paul Spicker (2000). The welfare state: a general theory, SAGE Pollock A. M. & Majeed F. (1995) Community oriented primary care. British Medical Journal, 310, pp481-482 Walsh, et al. (1997) Contracting for Change: Contracts in Health Social Care and Other Local Government Services, Oxford University Press Read More