Retrenchment and restructuring: family support and children's services reform under the coalition
Abstract
Purpose
With the UK Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government reaching its mid-term point, this paper examines its austerity measures and public expenditure reductions in family support and children's services, and its revisions of family support, family intervention, child poverty, child well-being and children's services reform policies in contrast to the former Labour governments.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is informed by policy analysis and research reviews.
Findings
The analysis focuses on three dimensions of policy change: first, reductions in income support for children and families and central government funding for children's services; second, refocusing child poverty, child well-being and family policies around the Conservative's “Broken Britain” campaign and the Liberal Democrats targeted social mobility initiatives; and finally, broader children's services reforms. The paper recognises some progressive developments but charts the social welfare implications of reduced welfare entitlements for families and the pressures on support services for families from children's services reforms.
Originality/value
The paper combines reflections on the aims, achievements and limitations of Labour reforms to family support and children's services with a broader analysis of welfare state retrenchment and restructuring under the Coalition. It places current changes in family support and children's services within the context of the ideological influences on the Coalition's social policies and the primacy of its austerity programme and welfare state reform agendas.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper entitled “Family support and the coalition: retrenchment, refocusing and restructuring” was published in Kilkey, M., Ramia, G. and Farnsworth, K. (Eds), Social Policy Review 24: Analysis and Debate in Social Policy 2012 Policy Press, Bristol. The author would like to thank Policy Press for permission to revise the chapter for submission to this journal.
Citation
Churchill, H. (2013), "Retrenchment and restructuring: family support and children's services reform under the coalition", Journal of Children's Services, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 209-222. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-05-2013-0020
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited