Drawing on case studies from two local authorities, this article identifies two distinct economic cultures in social care contracting. An arms-length contracting culture was emerging in interaction with risk-averse commercial suppliers, while a ‘partnership’ contracting culture was developing in association with non-profit providers who actively sought risk and responsibility. The article explores the discursive construction of the distinct implicit contracts associated with the two economic cultures, showing that ‘flexibility’ had become a key trope in contracting debate, carrying complex meanings of both responsiveness and control. The article thus unpacks the notion of ‘soft’ contracting in social care, and argues that social care contracting should be understood as a process of mutual shaping of both a divided care industry and an internally divided local authority economic culture. The article then draws out a series of implications of the research for policy and regulation in care contracting.

Rough sleeping in Britain has a long history, and interventions have alternated between legal sanctions and humanitarian concern. This paper critically examines recent changes in homeless policies and services, with particular reference to the needs of older people who sleep rough. The characteristics and problems of the group are first described. Single homeless people were formerly accommodated in direct-access hostels but, from the 1970s, individualised rehabilitation and resettlement have spread. Most recently, services dedicated to older people have begun (although remain few and are unevenly provided). Their achievements are reviewed and drawn upon in formulating normative proposals of the appropriate service mix. The 1990s ‘Rough Sleepers Initiative’ and related programmes promoted a ‘social care market’ of not-for-profit organisations that compete for increased (but short-term) funds to provide services, and the new Labour government will build upon these changes and increase funds. Low tolerance towards the ‘social exclusion’ of homelessness is promised but unerringly constructed as exclusion from work; while rough sleeping is dubbed as anti-social, coercive approaches to achieve a two-thirds reduction are foreseen. The proposed target might stall the development of diverse and effective services, or reduce providers' capacity to combat the perversities of resource allocation. The overall prospects for the improvement and expansion of services to provide significant help to single older homeless people are uncertain.

Historically there have been three strands of policy concerning provision for young children. Nursery education has traditionally been provided for three and four-year-olds as a free, part-time, school based service provided by qualified teachers, and is regulated by education legislation. Childcare for working parents is a full-time care service for children 0–5 to cover working hours, provided by nursery nurses or unqualified care staff in a variety of private settings including domestic settings; finding and paying for this service has until now been the responsibility of parents. Childcare is subject to the 1989 Children Act and the regulation is carried out by social services departments. Welfare care for vulnerable children or children in need is provided for young children aged 0–5 referred by social workers to local authority social services or voluntary run day nurseries or family centres, and also regulated under the terms of the Children Act. All these policy strands are now under review by the government.

There are a number of local authorities, voluntary organisations and private firms who have attempted to provide nurseries which combine all three strands of nursery education, childcare and welfare for vulnerable children. This article draws on case study research carried out in 1995–97 on five such innovative integrated nurseries. The findings suggest that there are very different kinds of practices with children which go on in nursery education, childcare and welfare settings, and that these practices tend to persist even when the functions of the institution are broadened. The article concludes that a more fundamental analysis of daily practice in nurseries is necessary to underpin any policy changes.

This paper explores how different discursive sites have sought to define and/or deny the actuality and harm of child sexual abuse in the first half of the twentieth century in England and Wales. Primary data from journal and archival sources suggest that there were a range of competing accounts of sexual abuse (usually referred to as sexual assaults or even just as ‘outrages’). It is argued that there was not a monolithic silencing of this abuse but a contest over the meaning of childhood, over the sexual innocence of girls, and even over the significance of discovering venereal diseases in babies and in children's homes. The paper suggests that there has been an overemphasis on the silencing potential of psychoanalytic discourses during this period, and insufficient attention paid to the role of the legal establishment and the practices of the criminal justice system in the persistent, but multifaceted, inability to define adult/child sexual contact as abusive or harmful.

Social policy appraisal depends on assumptions that are made about individual motivation and individual behaviour. In recent years greater weight has been given to behavioural characteristics which are typical of homo-economicus. At the same time, a growing body of evidence from experimental economics and from cognitive psychology identifies a ‘richer’ characterisation of individual behaviour. Allowance must be made for ‘individual failure’ and for preference endogeneity when designing and implementing social policy. A ‘broader’ agenda is required when evaluating social policies. When designing social policy greater emphasis must be placed on the ‘demonstration effect’.

The belief that drug addiction is the motor behind much property crime has been a key part of recent UK drug policy. Review of the literature shows that the empirical evidence does not support this view. It also demonstrates that the fundamental weakness of existing research is its failure to address the question of causality properly, relying mainly on uni-directional mechanistic ‘cause-and-effect’ models. It is suggested that the drug–crime link needs to be conceived in the context of the interaction and inter-relation of a range of factors operating at different levels and as part of a set of complex processes. The implications for policy are that a reliance on improving access to treatment is likely to be of limited effectiveness in reducing drug-related crime and that an emphasis on tackling social exclusion may be more fruitful. Future research needs to explore further the notion of causality outlined in this paper. It must also examine emerging patterns of polydrug use and look at minority ethnic groups and women.

The paper starts with a brief discussion of recent developments of economic restructuring of the State Owned Enterprises in China and their related reforms in social insurance and social assistance. It then reports the findings of an attitude survey of residents in Shanghai in 1996 towards the social and economic consequences of economic reform. It reveals that, despite the fact that most people feel better off with the reforms, there is still a need for the state to play a role in social protection.