Guiding principles for social security policy: Outcomes from a bottom‐up approach

Abstract

Covid-19 has highlighted the inadequacy of UK social security but also the lack of consensus among progressive actors about what would be a better system. One way forward is to focus on the principles that should underpin social security. We present outcomes from a project in which principles were considered by a panel of Expert by Experience benefit claimants. We argue that while scholars often engage in descriptively identifying social security principles in existing policy, the bottom-up approach presented here offers a way of generating normative principles to guide an improved future system. We identify key contributions of this bottom-up approach relating to: the critical importance of principles as a guide to the fundamental purpose of social security, and policy making; the relationship between the treatment of claimants and benefit levels as co-dependent; and how a bottom-up process can produce results that engage with and contribute holistically to the debate.

The two‐child limit and fertility decision making: When policy narratives and lived experiences collide

“…Here, this study's overarching qualitative longitudinal design is beneficial-enabling us to track both the presence and absence of change in individual lives, something which future publications will explore. It is crucial to not only seek understanding of these experiences and responses, but also to involve people affected by these policies in designing and developing social security policy (Orton et al, 2022). As the Covid realities project has shown, this will lead to fundamentally different policies (Patrick et al, 2022) and is likely to result in considerably more beneficial outcomes.…”

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on young fathers and the services that support them

“…Their underpinning nature meant the principles remained relevant to the changed circumstances of the pandemic and were not revised when COVID-19 hit. The principles are discussed in detail elsewhere (Orton et al, 2021) so will not be considered further here. Instead, this chapter reflects on issues relating to practice and process that were highlighted and often exacerbated by the pandemic.…”

Social Benefits Fraud Czech Case Study

“…Peeters (2021) looks in more detail at the extent to which EU law impacts on the freedom of Member States to choose (additional) taxes or social contributions as a means of funding deficits in their social security systems. As Orton et al (2021) have said, Covid-19 revealed the deficiency of British social security and a lack of consensus among progressive stakeholders over what kind of system would be better.…”