Publications on Social Policy
Aug
2010
Tuesday 31st August, 2010
Making Housing Affordable: A new vision for housing policy
By Alex Morton
Edited by Natalie Evans
Making Housing Affordable calls for a radical overhaul of housing policy, saving taxpayers around £20 billion a year. It calls for a big increase in the number of new homes being built for sale or rent in areas of high demand, with social housing tenants given new ways to get onto the first rung of the housing ladder.
The key policy goal is that by 2030, the Government should aim that all working households be able to afford to buy a decent home - giving all the security and other advantages of owner-occupation and a stake in their communities.
Press coverage • Guardian • Independent • Daily Mail • The Sun • Evening Standard • BBC News • Press Association • Local Government Chronicle • Regeneration & Renewal • Inside Housing • Inside Housing II • Inside Housing III • Iain Dale's Diary • Conservative Home • epolitix • egovmonitor • publicservice.co.uk • publicfinance.co.uk • planningresource.co.uk • thisismoney.co.uk • whathouse.co.uk • homemove.co.uk • Crewe Chronicle • Hampshire Chronicle • this is Cornwall
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Jul
2010
Thursday 8th July, 2010
Beware False Prophets: Equality, the Good Society and The Spirit Level
By Peter Saunders
Edited by Natalie Evans
Beware False Prophets is Policy Exchange's critique of The Spirit Level, a book published last year by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, which argued that income inequality harms almost everybody in society, no matter how prosperous they are.
In Beware False Prophets Wilkinson and Pickett’s empirical claims are critically re-examined using (a) their own data on 23 countries, (b) more up-to-date statistics on a larger sample of 44 countries, and (c) data on the US states. Very few of their empirical claims survive intact.
Press coverage • Times • Guardian • Guardian blog • Telegraph blog • New Economics Foundation
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Feb
2010
Monday 1st February, 2010
No Place Like Home
Written by James Groves
The need to ensure a secure, safe and stable home environment for every child cannot be overstated. For many of those children for whom the state has to provide long term ‘looked after’ care, the chance of an adoptive home offers the best opportunity to benefit from the stability and security of which they have been deprived. Yet, despite significant financial investment and considerable political will, the number of children in care who have been successfully adopted across England has fallen in recent years.
Press Coverage • Guardian • Local Government Chronicle • localgov.co.uk • Children & Young People Now • Communitycare.co.uk
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Oct
2009
Thursday 29th October, 2009
Poverty of Ambition: why we need a new approach to tackling child poverty
By Peter Saunders
Edited by Natalie Evans
In 1999, Tony Blair committed the Government to abolishing child poverty by 2020. In 2006, the Conservative opposition endorsed this aim, and in 2009 the Government introduced a Child Poverty Bill which requires all future governments to meet four child poverty targets.
It is difficult to criticise these targets, for nobody wants to object to policies intended to rescue children from poverty. But the way the Government is defining and measuring poverty is badly flawed, and the new Bill has more to do with redistributing incomes and increasing welfare payments than with tackling the underlying causes of child poverty.
This Research Note recommends that the current child poverty targets should be replaced and the Child Poverty Bill withdrawn. We are not, however, arguing that the Government should abandon its broader concern to improve child wellbeing and the causes of poverty.
If you would like a hard copy of this research note for £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Jul
2009
Thursday 9th July, 2009
The Power of Numbers - Why Europe needs to get younger
By Richard Ehrman.
The Power of Numbers looks at what population changes will mean as numbers continue to rise in the developing world, across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and how the economic, political and military balance of power across the globe will be affected. Its sobering conclusion is that Britain and Europe are about to be hit by a demographic upheaval for which they are largely unprepared.
Richard Ehrman says: "We are likely to emerge form the credit crunch only to find we are at the beginning of a long demographic crunch."
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £12.99 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Jun
2009
Friday 26th June, 2009
Reforming the UK Family Tax and Benefit System
Reforming the UK Family Tax and Benefits System reveals that the average middle-income family today pays £6,016 in tax and National Insurance contributions, but gets back £5,383 as social security and family payments. This unnecessary churning has undermined family independence and self-reliance and turned four-fifths of the nation’s families (around 5.5 million households) into welfare claimants.
Here are some of the recommendations from this report:
- Tax allowances for dependent children and for non-working spouses should be restored. This would allow working parents to keep more of what they earn, rather than going to the state for top-ups, and it would reduce wasteful churning and ‘middle class welfare’.
- Tax credits should be retained, but cut back so they are only claimed by low income working families
- The tax credits system should also be overhauled. There should be a single family tax credit, normally payable annually in arrears so as to eliminate the overpayments problem and reduce fraud.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Apr
2009
Tuesday 21st April, 2009
Families in Britain: the impact of changing family structures
By Dr Sarah Jenkins, Isabella Pereira & Natalie Evans.
In Britain today, both the public and politicians agree that families matter. Four out of five people say that ‘my family are more important to me than my friends’, and families currently ride high on the policy agendas of both the Labour and the Conservative Parties. One thing that unites everyone in Britain is the need for parents to take more responsibility for their children: 64% of us strongly agree this matters.
Yet ‘the family’, both in public opinion and as a policy area, is a source of persistent contradictions and trade-offs. Privately, families must balance the competing interests of parents, children and other dependants within the household such as elderly relatives.
The traditional single male breadwinner family is declining and the growth of single-parent families and other new kinds of family present many new challenges for government policy on welfare, work-life balance and in many other areas.
Families in Britain aims to be a starting point for a debate on policy, charting the changing nature of the family, and what that means for parents, children and our wider society.
If you would like a hard copy of this report priced at £10 + £3p&p or a research note for £4 + £1p&p then please email: janet.batterbee@policyexchange.org.uk
Nov
2008
Wednesday 19th November, 2008
Building Bridges: Philanthropy strengthening communities
By Louisa Mitchell & Rhodri Davies.
We are living in difficult times. The global financial system has been under severe stress as this report goes to print and has suffered major setbacks.
The City, the jewel in our own economic crown, is having to learn important lessons and the economy as a whole is facing the prospect of a period of recession.
But Britain must not forget its other great traditions that have endured over the years through economic ups and downs. We have a long history of philanthropy that meets this description and now is an important time to build on that tradition to develop a thriving modern philanthropy that meets the needs of the day and will endure into an uncertain future.
This report is about the role that people can play in addressing the needs of our society when they have created financial wealth that they are prepared to invest philanthropically.
It gives motivational examples of individuals acting as leaders in the communities who are not only financially generous, but are dedicating significant time and energy to bridging social divides and making their communities better places to live, work or simply be.
Jan
2008
Friday 11th January, 2008
Little Britons: Financing Childcare Choice
By Catherine Hakim, Karen Bradley, Emily Price & Louisa Mitchell.
Childcare requirements are most intensive during the first three years of a child’s life and these years are the focus of this report. Little Britons assesses research on parental preferences and reviews how State childcare is currently funded, how it supports individual families and its impact on the private and voluntary sectors. The report establishes that present arrangements, although a great improvement on the past, are not flexible enough to meet the needs of today’s varied family structures and working hours.
See the Spectator's coverage of Little Briton's here.
See the Independent's coverage here.
See the Times' coverage here and here.
See the Telegraph's coverage here.
See the Daily Mail's coverage here.
Dec
2007
Wednesday 19th December, 2007
Give and Let Give: building a culture of philanthropy in the financial services industry
By Dr Rob John, Rhodri Davies & Louisa Mitchell.
The most comprehensive report into the state and future of British philanthropy in the City this decade. Give and Let Give is designed to stimulate high-earning City professionals to embark on a philanthropic journey.
