‘Choice’ and ‘voice’ are two of the most significant means through which the public are able to participate in public services. Choice agendas position public service users as consumers, driving improvements by choosing good providers over bad, which then thrive through greater allocations of funds as money follows their selections (Le Grand, 2007). Choice-driven reforms tend to be about trying to make public services more locally responsive (Ferlie, Freeman, McDonnell, Petsoulas and Rundle-Smith, 2006). Voice-driven reforms, on the other hand, tend to position public service users as citizens, suggesting an emphasis on accountability mechanisms to drive service improvements through elections, with the possible removal of low regarded officials, or a greater involvement of local people in the running of services (Jenkins, 2006). Voice implies that citizens hold the right to participate in public services either through the political process, or through their direct involvement in the running or delivery of the services themselves. Of course, it is also possible to combine choice and voice mechanisms to try and achieve greater service responsiveness and accountability. In this review, choice reforms will be treated as those which are based upon consumer literature, and voice reforms those based upon attempting to achieve greater citizenship.

Citizenship and consumption are two areas with significant literatures in their own right, but whereas the citizenship literature is widely cited in the social policy literature, the consumption literature appears rather more selectively. This review examines each area in turn in terms of its application to social policy, and then presents a synthesis of commonalties in the two literatures, which represent particularly promising avenues for exploring the relationship between public services and their users.

This article rounds off the themed section by reviewing broader debates within welfare state modelling relevant to Greater China. More specifically, it examines the now well-established literature around the East Asian ‘model’ of welfare, and related debates on the notion of a ‘productive welfare’ model. In so doing, it challenges simplistic classifications that present the region as representing a single model of welfare and, instead, highlights the diversity of welfare provision found within both Greater China and East Asia more generally. Building on the authors’ earlier published work comparing East Asian welfare systems with those found across the OECD, it also challenges claims that the region is home to a distinct ‘productive’ model of welfare. The article ends by highlighting some key drivers that will shape future debates.

This article considers the defensibility of the extension of conditionality to disabled people through a qualitative investigation of welfare service users’ opinions on the applicability of conditionality for disabled people. Three focus groups took place, with participants segmented according to whether or not they were disabled, to enable a comparison between the attitudes of those who would and would not be directly affected by the extension of conditionality analysed. The qualitative research undertaken demonstrates how much more the government must do before it can justifiably make disability benefit receipt conditional on participating in work-related activities.

Two analytical tasks have been conducted in this article. The first is to construct a defamilisation typology that covers eighteen OECD members and four tiger economies (namely Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore). The second is to demonstrate this typology's contribution to the debate on the existence of two essential preconditions for the development of an all-encompassing East Asian welfare regime: (1) the existence of significant differences in the welfare systems between the East Asian countries and the non-East Asian OECD countries; and (2) the existence of significant similarities in the welfare systems of the East Asian countries.

Faced with a changing economic and demographic outlook, this article will suggest the adoption of a proactive and preventative approach to the quality of work and ‘worklife’ for the UK's ‘older workers’. Ultimately, it seeks to explore the possibilities for the implementation of the Finnish concept of Work Ability (Illmarinen, 2005) in the context of the UK policy agenda. It will be suggest that this approach provides a policy framework that addresses recessionary pressures whilst maximising quality of life and the active ageing of individuals.

The promotion of extended working life has created a period of uncertainty between the ending of work and the beginning of retirement. This period of the life course is now ‘open-ended’ in respect of whether older workers decide to remain in employment or leave working. However, the choices available are framed within public policy and organisational contexts as well as personal circumstances. The study reviews the organisation of ‘work-ending’, the construction of age within organisations, and the influences on provision of support in late working life. The article concludes with a discussion on the range of pressures that might limit control over pathways through middle and late working careers.

This article explores the application of Lipsky's (1980) notion of street-level bureaucracy for nursing staff. This article aims to demonstrate the importance of discretion within the day-to-day work of front-line nursing staff, which is similar to that of other public-sector workers. The findings are from an exploratory case study based within a Scottish inner-city hospital. It specifically focuses on how nurses can be seen to be street-level bureaucrats and how front-line nursing staff interpret policy. Discretion can be seen to be a significant feature within the front-line practice of nursing staff and this may have implications for the implementation of health policy.

This article reports on shifts and continuities in policy relating to disabled people and the administrative apparatus of federal disability policy under the Rudd government (2007–10). It begins with a brief historical overview of disability policy in Australia. It then gives particular attention to highlighting the contentious and dramatic changes to disability policy which were instigated by the Howard government (1996–2007). Following this, attention is focused on the major developments in disability policy and administration with the election of the Rudd Labor government in 2007. Through this discussion, we demonstrate the ways the altered vocabularies, practices and instruments of the state have manifested in relation to disability policy in Australia, ultimately shaping opportunities for either inclusion or exclusion at the national level among disabled people.

Despite increasing interest in household assets and debts, little is known about the way these are distributed and controlled within couples. Our understanding of these issues is important in social policy not least because some areas of policy (e.g. social security means-tests) assume that all couples, whether married/civil partnered or not, share assets equally, whereas other areas of policy, such as the law around intestacy or separation/divorce, make very different assumptions about married/civil partnered couples compared with cohabiting couples. But is there a difference between these couples or not? And are the assumptions made about each type of couple accurate? Our research suggests that the division of assets within couples is complex with formal, legal ownership of assets (housing, pensions, savings) and debts not always matching participants’ ‘perceptions’ of who owns them. And while there does seem to be a difference between cohabiting and married couples, there is also variation within these couples as other factors also influence the division of assets.

This article explores the educational experiences of 93 young women who experienced pregnancy at school in England, in order to examine the relationship between dislike of school, teenage pregnancy and educational disengagement. The article argues that a strong dislike of school, pre-pregnancy, is often at the root of disengagement before pregnancy, a situation often exacerbated when the news of pregnancy is met with prevailing negative attitudes within school. However, once pregnant, educational alternatives to school frequently provide a route back into, and a changed perception of education. Tackling pre-pregnancy dislike of school may have important implications for both the support and prevention aspects of the Government's teenage pregnancy strategy.

This article enquires into how parenting support, as concept, policy and provision, has penetrated the English social policy landscape, and critically considers why it has proved so popular with policy makers. It first outlines the existing policy configuration. The second section identifies some key factors precipitating the roll-out of parenting support and the third section takes an overview of the significance of the developments from a social and family policy perspective. The argument advanced is that the growth and expansion of parenting support is explained by a coming together of a set of political exigencies around ‘risk’ and the healthy child, and a set of policy ‘solutions’ which are seen to have high promise. In particular, parenting support has the advantage of being relatively easily generalisable (especially in the form of programmes) and aligns with several current developments of the welfare state, towards activation, provision of support through services and an interest in localism.

This paper discusses some of the tensions revealed in the development and implementation of recent area-based approaches to social policy in England. Such programmes are now a central feature of Government policy practice, although similar programmes have been developed in the past in the UK and other welfare capitalist countries. They reflect concerns to combat social exclusion and ‘join-up’ service provision. They are also evidence of a shift towards more agency based policy practice – from ‘top-down’ to ‘bottom-up’ planning. Thus participation of citizens is a key element in all programmes. Some of the problems of securing such participation are discussed, including in particular the tendency for expectations of participation to lead to pathological interpretations of the causes of (and solutions too) social exclusion.

This article explores gender as a variable in multiple exclusion homelessness in England. Much past research has taken insufficient account of the gender of homeless people, especially the predominance of men in the single homeless population and of women heading homeless households with dependent children. Drawing on qualitative data generated in a study of multiple exclusion homelessness in London and Nottingham, the article considers three ways in which gender may act as a homelessness variable: in people's susceptibility to homelessness, in their experiences of homelessness and in their encounters with accommodation services. By comparing the accounts of homeless men and women with complex support needs with evidence from staff working for support agencies, the overall aim of the article is to offer a critical examination of the gendered assumptions of homelessness policy and practice.

Too many children face disadvantages that negatively impact their health, happiness and future life chances. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) represent a particularly traumatic set of circumstances that have been found through research to dramatically increase the likelihood of poor adult physical and mental health outcomes. While we do not view ACEs to represent the only or necessarily the most serious risks to children’s development, we do recognise them to pose a substantial threat. This article identifies twenty-four interventions with causal evidence of preventing or reducing ACE-related trauma and considers how they could be offered through system-wide strategies aimed at improving the lives of children who are at the greatest risk. While we are not suggesting that these interventions – on their own or in combination – represent a magic solution to ACEs, or the wider societal issues that contribute to them, we do propose that knowledge about their effectiveness can improve the quality of services that support the needs of highly vulnerable children.

European migrant citizens and their social rights are strongly contested in British political debate. This article seeks to challenge some common concerns and perceptions regarding the exceptionality of the British welfare state and the alleged ‘costs’ to it from intra-EU migration. The article first provides a brief overview of the foundations for EU citizenship and associated social rights, highlighting the semi-sovereign nature of welfare states in the European Union. It then (i) rejects the significance of the often-claimed difference between contributory and non-contributory welfare states in the context of EU migration; and (ii) challenges concerns about the costs of EU migration. The article contrasts the experiences of Britain and Germany. It concludes by considering how concerns often associated with EU migration can be addressed by improving administrative and state capacities.

There is little research that explicitly compares the lives of children from different social backgrounds, particularly with regard to their freedom, safety, and use of public space. Drawing on the findings of a participatory research project with 42 children from different socio-economic backgrounds, this article shows how and why children's play differs depending on their social background. It also highlights the importance of street play in the lives of disadvantaged children, arguing that they engage in street play as a consequence of having less space and fewer alternatives, and yet their opportunities for play are further restricted due to local development and community ‘policing’. The article calls for the safeguarding of open public space, and an increased recognition of the importance and value of street play. Finally, it points out the contradictions in government policy regarding children's play and well-being.

Employer reluctance to hire disabled people narrows the economic and vocational opportunities of disabled people. This study investigates employer hiring decisions to identify which mainstream employers are most likely to hire disabled people. The study reports findings from interviews with eighty-seven employers in urban and regional South Australia. Analysis reveals differences across groups of employers based on their previous hiring behaviour. Communication from employment support agencies should specifically address concerns of non-hirers and light hirers. Long-term financial concerns present strong but surmountable barriers to light hirers employing disabled people. Policy mitigating long-term employer concerns could attract employers to hire disabled people for the first time (non-hirers) or return to hiring (light hirers) disabled people. Negative employers (antagonists) and employers already sustaining ongoing workplace relationships with disabled people (loyals) have insurmountable reasons to not hire any (or more) disabled people and should not be targeted.

Intensive family intervention projects have become an increasingly prominent mechanism within anti-social behaviour and social policy programmes in the UK and are supported, in principle, by the new coalition government. They have also been the subject of considerable academic controversy within the evaluative and critical literature. This article attempts to inform continuing debates about the purpose and effects of these projects by conceptualising the contexts within which interactions between projects and families occur; classifying the component aspects of roles and support provided; and presenting a three-part typology of potential outcomes from project interventions.

In the UK, participation in decision-making is increasingly being viewed as a right for users of mental health services. Yet research repeatedly finds a policy implementation gap in this area. Drawing on a localised, qualitative study involving three mental health service user/community groups, this article frames this issue in terms of a ‘politics of recognition’. It demonstrates how whilst government user involvement policies officially attempt to recognise users and their voices, they simultaneously reconstitute failures of recognition in terms of status subordination and a disqualified identity for service users, thereby obstructing participatory parity and amounting to a dereliction of the core principles underlying human rights.

This article evaluates recent transformations in social policy that reflect the tendency towards individualisation in The Netherlands. Such transformations have taken place in old age pensions, widows' pensions, social assistance and taxation, and in respect of child support following divorce. Interestingly most reforms have not resulted in ‘full individualisation’, but rather have taken into account the fact that people, in particular women, are not or cannot be assumed to be full-time adult workers. Such a ‘moderate individualisation’, however, is not without risks for women's economic independence, especially when the developments of the Dutch ‘life course perspective’ on social security are considered.