Social Policy for Social Work, Social Care and the Caring Professions

Scottish Perspectives

Steve J Hothersall, Janine Bolger, Steve J Hothersall, Janine Bolger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000281385
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This revised second edition analyses social policy in Scotland since devolution in 1999 and reflects the nascent and distinctively Scottish policy agenda. Along with updated chapters, there are two new inclusions: a chapter analysing post-devolution Scotland and a chapter on the likely impacts of Brexit on and within Scotland.

Providing diagrams, tables and a range of activities, the book maintains an innovative and pedagogic emphasis to introduce students to a wealth of materials, ideas and practical responses to the increasingly complex and diverse situations faced by social workers and other professionals. Part 1 of the book looks at what social policy is, how and why it is made and highlights the importance of the relationship between social policy and the law. Part 2 refers to specific themes of social exclusion, poverty and (more visible for this revised edition) austerity, considering their complex and multidimensional forms and discussing the range of policies currently extant that aim to combat such disadvantage. Part 3 provides a comprehensive overview of policy for practice, considering concepts of health inequality, mental health, older people, disability, children and families, education, substance use, criminal justice, asylum and immigration and homelessness.

This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as post-qualified professionals seeking to understand the complexities of the social policy landscape in Scotland, and its influence on social work and related forms of professional practice.

Part 1

Context

1
What is social policy?

Steve J Hothersall

Introduction

In this chapter we shall provide a general overview of the subject area of social policy and describe in general terms what it is, how it is made, why it exists and what it generally looks like. We shall also consider the relationship between social policy, the law and other forms of guidance (both statutory and non-statutory) and the relevance to and the effect upon professional practice(s), highlighting some significant themes that will be developed in subsequent chapters.

In the world of social work and related professions and disciplines, policy is everywhere. Some would say that over the past 20 years there has been a veritable explosion of policymaking, and since New Labour came to power in 1997 under Tony Blair, there has been an increased emphasis upon ‘government by objectives’ tied very much to the “what works (now)?” agenda (Boaz et al. 2019) and the whole notion of “modernizing government” (Cabinet Office 1999, 2011). Within a devolved Scotland (Hassan and Barrow 2019; and see Chapter 5), as in the rest of the UK, there is still a clear focus around this centralised approach (Scottish Government 2018), with evidence-based policy-making the stated aim, although its converse in the shape of policy-based evidence (finding facts to suit the situation, redolent of the advent of “fake news”) is hotly debated (Einfeld 2019; Perl, Howlett and Ramesh 2018; Bache 2020) and raises some interesting issues regarding the role and function of a field of study referred to as agnotology, particularly relevant in this era of what we refer to as ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’.

‘Fake news’ and agnotology: the ‘science’ of ignorance

In this section, I introduce you to an alternative way of looking at policy – and other factors – from the perspective of what we do not know. Perhaps an easy way to appreciate what agnotology has to teach us is to think about the (now well-known) efforts of the tobacco industry to minimize the (now fully understood) health risks of smoking. As Slater (2019: 21) notes, “In sum, there are powerful institutions that want people not to know and not to think about certain conditions and their causes, and agnotology is an approach that traces how and why this happens”.

Agnotology, then, is the study of how ignorance and/or doubt, as a lack of knowledge or understanding about something, is both deliberately generated and consciously sustained (Slater 2012). This might well be by the production of inaccurate or misleading research data, reports or the widespread dissemination of contradictory views on a particular topic, particularly from people/organisations perceived as being in some way powerful – government, leaders/experts in the field, etc. Slater (2019) provides a striking example in relation to social housing in the UK and the production of a report, subsequently endorsed by government, that appeared to totally disregard any evidence that could have provided a contradictory (and more accurate) picture of the issues affecting social housing than that portrayed by the authors of the report. What appear to be the deliberate attempts of the authors to distort the available evidence and ‘ignore the obvious’, so to speak, is a good example of how policy, from any domain, can be significantly affected because of agendas and ideologies (see Chapter 3) of those concerned, particularly when such people are acting on behalf of others with what could be seen to be vested interests. In this case, these would be private landlords and property developers, as opportunities to make vast profits were being actively promoted, and the government, whose contributions to social housing through public finances and their responsibilities towards those who were affected by the lack of affordable housing were to be significantly reduced.

To illustrate the power of such deliberative tactics, a (sadly) now common example might serve to illustrate agnotology in full flow. President Donald Trump uses cries of ‘fake news’ to deflect attention from issues raised that might require a much steadier gaze. Where this happens, he (and others) sow the seeds of doubt over a topic or an issue and may even produce ‘evidence’ to support their claims by way of selective or plain wrong information (Fish 2019; Happer, Hoskins and Merrin 2019). He (and others) also peddle ‘fake news’, particularly via the use of social media (Clayton et al. 2019) by making claims regarding issues that they feel require attention, but where the evidence base for such is clearly suspect or non-existent – a form of ‘implied truth’ which has been shown to be particularly effective as it is often easier to provide misinformation in the first place than it is to debunk such claims later on – thus giving such information a level of credibility it does not deserve (Pennycook et al. 2019).

All of this resonates with the notion of ‘post-truth politics’ – where the political narrative and particular discourses within this (for example, climate change) are regularly challenged by reference to ‘alternative facts’ (Neimark et al. 2019; Dunn 2019). However, what is particularly noteworthy about the current era of ‘post-truth politics’ is that misinformation/lies/distortions of the truth, or whatever you want to call it nowadays, has two particularly worrisome characteristics: the first is that such expressions today appear to have little or no consequences on the person concerned – or certainly less so than might have been thought beforehand; and secondly, such behavior no longer seeks concealment – it is done ‘in plain sight’. This has links to what has been referred to as the ‘Reality-Based Community’ in politics, whereby people believe that ‘solutions emerge from the judicious study of discernible reality’ – a point elaborated upon in Chapter 3 under our discussions of neoliberalism, but it an idea that works thus: “[W]hen we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality … judiciously, as you will, we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too” (quoted in Suskind 2004). These are tactics of disorientation and make it harder to keep focused on the real issues. Perhaps more significantly, “Another danger [of the modern lie] is the devaluation of the history in which the struggle for social justice is grounded…. [how the use of such lies] represent efforts to rewrite history, to take away the power of [the] interpretation of history…. [T]he modern political lie does not merely attempt to mislead, but to rewrite history and thereby change reality … The modern lie goes beyond hiding – it destroys” (Birmingham 2010: 83, quoted in Dunn 2019: 182).

The significance of all of this to policy studies lies in the need to be aware of the importance of looking critically at the processes involved in the development and implementation of policy and asking critical questions regarding the nature of the practices such policy initiatives invoke (see Slater 2012). Chapter 3 gives a detailed account of the influence of neoliberal thinking and practices which has a bearing on the issues discussed here.

If you look at the Scottish Government web site (www.gov.scot/topics/), you can see at a glance the broad policy areas to which the government addresses itself. These areas and their policies have an influence upon the lives of all of us, directly or indirectly, so it is worth spending some time becoming familiar with these, and this is a good place to start. It is also the case that policy development, as one aspect of government, is based on the notion of collective decision-making aligned to the National Performance Framework for Scotland (Scottish Government 2011).

What is social policy?

Social policy is a subject area that appears unfamiliar to most people when you refer to the topic, yet it affects all of us on a daily basis, and it is probably true to say that most of us think or hear about it every day. Even giving a cursory glance to the newsfeed on your mobile device, reading a daily newspaper or listening to your favourite radio station, you will invariably come across some reference to social policy. Look at the Exercise 1.1 box and undertake the exercise.

Exercise 1.1 Policies for everyone!

Think about your own personal situation and make a list of the types of ‘policies’ that exist in your own home. For example, you might have an agreement (a policy) that says that everyone who comes into the house by the front door must remove their shoes before going into the living room. This is the ‘Shoe Removal Policy’. You may also have a policy that says that the last person to go to bed at night must check that all the doors are locked. This is the ‘Check the Doors Are Locked Last Thing at Night Policy’. And so on.

When you have done your list, think of these as your own ‘social policies’ for your own social space. Why do you have them? What is their purpose? What would happen if these ‘policies’ did not exist or were not followed? How would this make life at home?

(This exercise, when done with groups of students, highlights a fascinating – and often hilarious! – range of policies and offers interesting insights into how we all attempt to order our private lives, sometimes in very different ways!)

Now, think about other social phenomena: the care and protection of children, the treatment of people with a mental disorder, the provision of education and health care. These issues are deemed to be of such importance to us as a society as to require a coherent, collectivised and (generally) consistent response to them, so that irrespective of who you are or where you are, you are guaranteed to get help or access to a particular service whenever you need it. Ideally, the assistance received should be of high quality, coherently planned and managed and efficiently delivered in accordance with the individual’s requirements (needs). Whether these characteristics are present at an individual level is as much about practice as it is about policy, but from the broad perspective of policy, dealing with broad-based social phenomena is, in principle, no different from putting in place arrangements for dealing with issues at home. The issue of whether such collective and state-coordinated responses to such phenomena are the most appropriate will be the subject of discussion in Chapter 3.

The basic function of any policy, social or otherwise (e.g. economic policy, agricultural policy, defence policy – although all of these do have broad social effects) is to provide what I will refer to (ideally) as a coherent and consistent response to particular (social) phenomena. In the aforementioned examples regarding your own social space, such phenomena initially referred to removing shoes and locking doors. In addition to the types of policy provision referred to earlier, which are quite specific, we should also consider policies that are in place and affect all of us more generally – the payment of Child Benefit; Jobseekers Allowance/Income Support; maternity payments and leave allowances; Housing Benefit and, of course, the policy that requires us to pay Council Tax, which is then used to provide collective services such as the police and fire services and collect our wheelie bins and dispose of our rubbish.

All policy provision is subject to certain entitlement rights. Some policies are there unconditionally and continuously, e.g. NHS provision. Other policies have certain conditions attached to them which may relate to an individual’s circumstances – e.g. free NHS prescriptions, child benefit, primary and secondary education (all are age-dependent) – or that focus on holding a particular status – being out of work is a condition for being eligible to receive Jobseekers, etc.; being a student is a condition of eligibility for various rebates and to apply for a student loan, etc., whereas some social policies, like those relating to the protection of children and the care and treatment of people with a mental disorder mentioned previously, have certain conditions attached to them in order for these to be accessible. However, they are there for all of us should the need ever arise, and this is one of the major points to remember about social policy: it affects us all, ‘from the cradle to the grave’ (although in fact it starts before birth with free NHS prescriptions and maternity care for expectant mothers, and it continues after death via Widows Benefit and Funeral payments), so its influence and impact is all around us every day.

Briefly, then, that is what social policy is and why it exists. So, the next time you listen to the radio, watch the TV or go online, make a note of the range of inform...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part 1 Context
• Part 2 Themes and issues
• Part 3 Policy for practice
• Index