Analysis Of Social Policies In The United Kingdom

1. Explain the meaning of the term ‘social policy’.

2. Discuss current examples of social policy and how they affect the lives of citizens.

3. Identify the major milestones in the development of the British welfare state.

4. Evaluate the significance of the Beveridge Report when first published and today.

5. Understand the relationship between social policy and political beliefs.

6.  Discuss the limitations placed on social policy by taxation policy.

7. Discuss contemporary models for social policy such as ‘new right’ and ‘social democratic’

Definition of Social Policy

The essay helps in analysing the different kind of social policies along with examples of social policies that will have huge effect on the lives of the citizens in The United Kingdom. The identification of the different milestones in the development of British welfare state has to be analysed in an effective manner.

 Social policy is defined as the term that is applied in different kind of areas of policy within political or governmental setting such as the study of social services. Social policy is the set of guidelines along with legislations and other activities that affects the living conditions of individuals that includes the quality of life of the different individuals (Porter et al. 2016).

There are fundamental kind of differences between the right-wing and left-wing ideologies centre around the different kind of rights of the individuals along with power of government. The social policies are the different kind of areas wherein there will be requirement of governmental setting in United Kingdom. The left-wings are defined as the different kind of beliefs that are liberal in nature and they believe that the entire society is served best with the role of the government that is expanded in nature.

However, on the other hand, individuals who are on the right wings believe that best outcome for the entire society is achieved wherein the different individuals’ civil liberties and rights are supreme in nature. There are different examples of the role of the government that is expanded in nature that includes the different kind of programs of entitlement that are Medicare and social security, food stamps and public education to the students that are free. On the other hand, right wing ideology helps in favouring the different solutions that are market based along with different kind of issues that the different government programs will tackle in an effective manner.

There are different kind of examples that include encouragement of healthcare freer marketplace that are properly driven by the costs that are based on the choices of the different customers. In United Kingdom, the privately held accounts such as retirement accounts in place of the government guaranteed social kind of security. There are different kind of differences between the right and left wing of the social policies that include the following:

The political philosophy of the left wing is liberal in nature; however, the political philosophy of right wing is conservative in nature. In the left wing, the economic policy includes that there is equality in income, the rate of taxes has to be high on the wealthy business individuals, the government will require to spend more on the social and infrastructure programs in different parts in United Kingdom. However, on the other hand, right wing includes less regulation on the entire business, spending of the government is reduced in nature and the budget is balanced in nature.

Differences Between Left-wing and Right-wing Ideologies

In left wing, the percentage of the population of UK that is self-identifying is more than 23% and in right wing, the percentage of population of UK is 38%. The healthcare policy of left wing believes that access to the fundamental kind of healthcare is the right of all the individuals. On the other hand, there is opposing of the government provided healthcare that can cause huge issues. The education policy of left wing was in favour expanded free and public education, however in right wing, the individuals are not opposed to public kind of education (Ehrenreich 2014).

The United Kingdom is one of the unitary state in which the substantiality of central government helps in directing the activities of the government. The structure of different services in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland differs in different kind od aspects in an effective manner. Then different social policies will be effective in nature on the citizens of United Kingdom wherein social policies provide zero tolerance to the distribution of different kind of substances that is illegal in nature (Heins and de la Porte 2015). For instance- there was a situation in United Kingdom wherein there were different individuals who were caught during selling of drugs and they were caught and faced severe kind of charges in the eyes of law in United Kingdom that ended up to multi-year imprisonment time. These are the different kind of techniques that was adopted by government helped them in promoting social control over the trafficking of different hazardous substances and this will bring social changes as this will discourage individuals from using such kind of drugs (Timmins 2017).

In United Kingdom, it has been proclaimed that smoking is illegal in nature in different public spots. This kind of research was done as the different researchers have shown that passive kind of smokers have high risk of developing lung cancer and it is necessary for them to protect their health in an effective manner. The social policy of the state is main factor wherein the human societies are kept active and alive as without a social policy, the community feeling will get disappeared from the people (Johnson, Kulmala and Jäppinen, 2016).

The welfare of the child along with removing poverty from the society of UK has been done that has provided guidance to the different children about importance of life by educating them. The social policies have helped in implementation of different programs that has helped the children to earn by studying and they are earning their bread and livelihood (Rothstein and Steinmo 2016).

Examples of Left-wing and Right-wing Policies

There are different kind of milestones that are involved in the development of British welfare state. There are different techniques of analysing the development of state along with analysing the technology that has to be improved shifting economic and social factors that included the lower rate of births and helping the individuals to live longer (Peck and Theodore 2015). The different key theories of welfare state development are the ones that is based on liberalism, Neo-liberalism and Marxism along with post-structuralism that are used in the development of the welfare states in an effective manner. Furthermore, liberalism helped in stressing role of individuals in providing their needs, the entire United Kingdom has to focus on those who are not able to find appropriate jobs (Vis 2016).

With the implementation of welfare state development programs, it is the mixture of different approaches wherein the political concerns are taken into consideration. The different measures of welfare are implemented in United Kingdom to solve the different kind of issues in an effective manner. The recent changes in the demographics along the future trends make welfare state development is the main issue for present as well the future. The individuals whose age is more than 65 years help in representing 16% of the entire population of UK by the year 2041 and there will be rise to 25% in 2041 as well (Rhodes 2016).

Furthermore, the Actuary’s department of the government of UK represented and estimated that section of working population will decrease from 65% to 57% those who are aged between 19-64. The aging population of United Kingdom is a major problem in UK wherein the welfare functions are essential in nature to provide assistance to different individuals to the particular age.

Beveridge Report is the social insurance along with allied services is the government kind of report that was published in the month of November 1942 that helped in influencing the welfare programs of welfare state in United Kingdom. In the past, it was seen that there were widespread reforms to system of social welfare that has addressed in an effective manner.

Furthermore, in the present scenario, the Beveridge report has helped in understanding the different other aspects other than the social aspects. The different kind of political aspects are taken into consideration as this helps the individuals in the society to receive proper education, it has helped in reducing poverty along with providing national health service to the entire society as well. This is the government report that will help in performing survey for the welfare functions in Britain and removing the five evils from the entire society as well.

Impact of Social Policies on Citizens in The United Kingdom

There are different kind of limitations on the entire social policy by the taxation policy in United Kingdom wherein it includes both qualitative and quantitative kind of changes. The unemployment has been high and it is the essential indicator in the economic and social dimensions. The rise in the unemployment has resulted in loss of income from different individuals and it creates pressure on the government and it creates reduction in tax revenues as well.

Furthermore, it can be seen that the income polarization is the second limitation on the social policy by taxation policy. The government cannot fight the poverty and economic kind of polarization leads to social polarization and that resulted in perpetual poverty as well. It has been seen in many countries in United Kingdom, they have chosen flat taxation rate system that has affected the growth of the society in an ineffective manner.

Contemporary models for social policy as new right and social democratic

There are different kind of models of social policy as the new right and social democratic wherein the models are as follows:

Residual Model is the one that helps in concerned with the needs and requirements of the needy along with poverty-oriented model that will help in understanding their requirements effectively.

Secondly, the industrial achievement-performance model is the model that focuses on the different kind of welfare programs that has to be provided to the individuals in United Kingdom. The IAP model helps in helping the entire economy to grow in an effective manner by serving the workforce and providing services to the industry by offering secure development basis in an effective manner (Greer 2016).

Thirdly, the industrial redistributive model is the one that forecast the states and needs of dependency that includes the normal aspects of life of human beings in an effective manner. The approach is based on acceptance of the mutual social analysing requirements in an effective manner.

Lastly, Gosta Esping-Andersen’s Model of Welfare helps in understanding the different social and political regime of the countries in an effective manner. Therefore, these are the different models that help in understanding the requirements of the individuals in the society and provide them with welfare as this is essential in the organization (Hamnett 2014). 

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that social policy is essential element in the welfare of the entire society in an effective manner. The social policy has helped in improving the lives of the individuals and the with identification of milestones, it has helped in reducing the limitations of the social policy. The importance of the Beveridge report has helped in understanding that the social policy welfare program has to be implemented in an effective manner that has helped the entire United Kingdom to reduce such limitations in an effective manner.

References

Ehrenreich, J.H., 2014. The altruistic imagination: A history of social work and social policy in the United States. Cornell University Press.

Greer, I., 2016. Welfare reform, precarity and the re-commodification of labour. Work, employment and society, 30(1), pp.162-173.

Hamnett, C., 2014. Shrinking the welfare state: the structure, geography and impact of British government benefit cuts. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(4), pp.490-503.

Heins, E. and de la Porte, C., 2015. The sovereign debt crisis, the EU and welfare state reform.

Jenson, J.M. and Fraser, M.W. eds., 2015. Social policy for children and families: A risk and resilience perspective. Sage Publications.

Johnson, J.E., Kulmala, M. and Jäppinen, M., 2016. Street-level Practice of Russia's Social Policymaking in Saint Petersburg: Federalism, Informal Politics, and Domestic Violence. Journal of Social Policy, 45(2), pp.287-304.

Peck, J. and Theodore, N., 2015. Fast policy: Experimental statecraft at the thresholds of neoliberalism. University of Minnesota Press.

Porter, A.N., Stockwell, A.J., Pasieka, A. and Ho, W.S., 2016. British Imperial Policy And Decolonization 1938-64: Vol 1. 1938-1951. Springer.

Rhodes, M., 2016. The future of European welfare: a new social contract?. Springer.

Rothstein, B. and Steinmo, S. eds., 2016. Restructuring the welfare state: political institutions and policy change. Springer.

Timmins, N., 2017. The Five Giants [New Edition]: A Biography of the Welfare State. HarperCollins UK.

Vis, B., 2016. Taking stock of the comparative literature on the role of blame avoidance strategies in social policy reform. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 18(2), pp.122-137.