social policy

• What do social policy laws cover?

  laws such as divorce, changes to the benefit systems which affect family income, reforms to the education system, adoption, fostering and employment
• what does donzelot argue about social policy?

  argued that social policy can be used to control families. Health care visitors can use their knowledge to control family behaviour
• What was state social policy between 1945 and 1979

  it was interventionist
• Who and when set up the Welfare State?

  set up by the labour government in 1948
• What was the welfare state?

  supported families through benefit, public housing, family allowances an free health care
• How can people pay for the Welfare State?

  people paid onto a national insurance scheme - it is meant to be universal with everyone having the same benefits an services
• When was the conservative government in power?

  1979
• What did the conservative government believe in?

  Reduced state interrvention
• What was Thatchers government influenced by?

  New Right ideology. They believed that the nuclear family’s was the cornerstone of society and that society should be freed of state interference. They thought the UK had become a ‘nanny state’ with to much government control over individual lives
• What did Thatcher want individuals to do?

  Be more responsible for their own lives and depictions - the state would intervene much less in private matters. So benefits were cut and axes lowered
• What is means testing (conservative government)

  When you only get a benefit if your household is below a set level
• Why was means testing introduced?

  It was introduced for some benefits with the aim of helping those only in genuine need
• what were mothers encourage to do (conservative gov)

  They were encouraged to stay at home through preferential tax allowances
• What did benefits cuts enable (conservative gov)

  Families were pushed to take on more responsibility for older people through benefit cuts
• What did Thatchers conservative government echo?

  Charles Murray ‘culture of dependency’
• When was the second conservative gov in power?

  1988
• How did Thatcher describe the family in 1988?

  “‘Building blocks of society’. Its a nursery, a school, a hospital, a leisure place, a place of refuge and a place of rest”
• What did the conservatives 1988 value?

  traditional nuclear families
• What laws did the conservatives 1988 create?

  • The child support agency
  • The children’s act 1989
• Why did the conservatives create new laws?

  To enforce the rights and responsibilities of individuals in families
• What is the Child Support Agency?

  It was established in 1993 to force absent fathers and mothers to pay a fair amount for the upkeep of their child
• What is the Children’s Act 1989?

  OLutlined the rights of a child
• What law did the conservatives consider?

  They considered creating a law to make divorce more difficult - a compulsory cooling off period was proposed before a couple could divorce. However they abandoned the idea as it didn’t work in practice
• What is section 28/ clause 28?

  It was part of a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local authorities
• Who introduced section 28?

  Margaret Thatchers conservative government. It was in effect from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales
• what did section 28 state?

  That teaching anything LGBT was now prohibited in schools. Furthermore, LGBT clubs and groups disbanded across the country and all LGBT literature was removed from shelves in libraries and book shops
• When was the New Labour?

  1997
• What did the New Labour base their ideologies on?

  Third Way ideology - a middle ground between left and right wing politics
• What was the New Labour 1997 policies designed to be?

  more pragmatic and less ideological than either the 1979 conservative government or previous labour governments
• what did the new labour 1988 say in their consultation paper?

  ‘Supporting Families‘ they made it clear that marriage was their preferred basis for family life. However, they showed an awareness of, and concern for family diversity
• What did the New Labour 1997 introduce in 2005?

  • Civil partnerships, a union a lot like marriage that is available to same sex-couples
  • Laws allowing cohabiting couples to adopt children
  • They adopted some New Right ideas abut family policy - they cut lone-parent benefits, supported means testing and were opposed to universal benefits
• What party was the Coalition Government 2010 under?

  Conservative and Lib Dem
• Who formed the Coalition Government 2010?

  David Cameron in 2010, as no party won a majority
• What did the Coalition government promote?

  They promoted marriage as a stabilising force in family life. For example they pledged to remove the ‘couples penalty’ that made those on benefits better off if they lived apart
• What did the Coalition government 2010 legalise in 2014?

  Same-sex marriage. However, not all conservatives agreed as they thought that civil partnership and the same sex marriage would damage family stability
• What did the coalition government promote 2010 introduce a policy of economic austerity?

  After the financial crisis of 2008
• What is the policy of economic austerity?

  They wanted to reduce the amount of money the gov was spending which impacted family life in the UK. In an attempt to reduce the Welfare bill, they capped housing benefit in 2013 for couples and single parents
• What did the conservatives government 2015 continue with?

  The coalition policy of austerity and thought families should take more economic responsibility for their children
• What did the conservative government 2015 announce about benefits?

  They announced a cap on child benefit, they decided that families with three of more children would not receive a and increase in child tax credits (unless the woman could prove she was rape) or housing benefits
• who and what did the secretary for work and pensions in the conservative gov 2015 suggest?

  who - Duncan Smith

  what - suggested that limiting child benefits to the first 2 children would promote behavioural change and discourage families from having too many children