Social Services Disrupted: Changes, Challenges and Policy Implications for Europe in Times of Austerity

Abstract

ISBN 978 1 78643 210 0 (cased) ISBN 978 1 78643 211 7 (eBook) Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire v Contents List of figures and tables ix List of contributors xi Acknowledgements xv PART I CONTEXT AND CONCEPTS 1 Social services, welfare states and places: an overview 11

Introduction to the Special Issue on social services as critical infrastructure: Taking stock of the promises of the social investment state

“…Comparative studies on the development of social services are either rather old (Bahle, 2008) or concentrate only on particular sectors (e.g. Martinelli et al, 2017).…”

Community Place Initiatives post-austerity, and how a ‘civic’ School of Architecture might support them

“…In this article we focus on three CPIs out of the sixteen that were interviewed -Israac Sheffield Somali Cultural Organisation, Pitsmoor Adventure Playground, and Heeley Trust. These groups have been selected as they share common features: they are well-established groups, embedded in their communities over many years; they all play a vital [4]. Outputs from these collaborations have included designs for retrofitting the playground building and a nearby chapel into a youth centre, design and construction of new play structures, and co-research on the value of play in city futures.…”

“…understanding of the impacts of austerity across many sectors, informing ways in which this impact is, in part, being mitigated. In the context of the UK, the majority of academic research on austerity focuses on poverty and related health and welfare issues, 2 healthcare provision, 3 social services and procurement, 4 and on the spatial consequences of budget cuts -especially focusing on affordable housing. 5 Less attention, however, has been placed on the various roles that 'Community Place Initiatives' 6 (in further text referred to as CPIs) play in mitigating the effects of drastic cuts to Local Government budgets.…”

Social policy research in changing European societies

“…However, it is not uncommon for governments to provide solely the legislative frameworks, while other tasks are performed outside the public sector. In many European welfare states, the role of the state has consistently declined in recent years and become more occupied by regulating private and/or not-for-profit actors, local Public expenditures on cash and in-kind benefits (services) as a percentage of annual GDP governments, or other institutions such as the family (e.g., Kazepov, 2010;Martinelli et al, 2017;Szebehely & Meagher, 2018).…”

“…Partly due to population ageing, larger shares of social expenditures are devoted to old-age pensions and health care, while the fraction of social spending going to out-of-work benefits has declined in many European countries (Castles, 2004;Obinger & Wagschal, 2010). The stagnation and decline that set in during the 1980s, with changes in the composition of social spending, have gone hand in hand with other major changes to European welfare states, including the fiscalization of social policy (Ferrarini et al, 2013), privatization or marketization of core public services (Peters, 2012), and a decentralization of social policies from national to local levels (Kazepov, 2010;Martinelli et al, 2017).…”