Pete Alcock

In this fifth edition of the best-selling core introductory textbook, Pete Alcock and Lee Gregory provide a comprehensive and engaging introduction to social policy. Continuing with the unbeaten narrative style and accessible approach of the previous editions, the authors explore the major topics of social policy in a clear and digestible way. By breaking down the complexities behind policy developments and their outcomes, the book demonstrates the relationship between core areas of policy and the society we live in. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the impact of Brexit and contains reflections on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for social policy. Each chapter contains comprehension activities to aid understanding, as well as helpful summary points and suggestions for further reading.

In this fifth edition of the best-selling core introductory textbook, Pete Alcock and Lee Gregory provide a comprehensive and engaging introduction to social policy. Continuing with the unbeaten narrative style and accessible approach of the previous editions, the authors explore the major topics of social policy in a clear and digestible way. By breaking down the complexities behind policy developments and their outcomes, the book demonstrates the relationship between core areas of policy and the society we live in. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the impact of Brexit and contains reflections on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for social policy. Each chapter contains comprehension activities to aid understanding, as well as helpful summary points and suggestions for further reading.

What is welfare? Why is it a key part of the ‘common good’ for all? And how should we go about providing it? Pete Alcock, a well-respected expert, explains the challenges that collective welfare faces, and explores the complexities involved in delivering it, including debates about who benefits from welfare and how and where it is delivered. His primary focus is on the UK, including the problems of poverty and inequality, and how recent political and economic changes have undermined public investment; but he also draws on international examples from Europe and other OECD countries, such as the impact of private health care in the USA. Why we need welfare is a call for new forms of collective action to meet welfare needs in the 21st century. It offers a fresh perspective on the key issues involved, and is a great introduction to this important and topical debate.

This book provides a new perspective on joblessness among men. During the last twenty years vast numbers of men of working age have moved completely out of the labour market into ‘early retirement’ or ‘long-term sickness’ and to take on new roles in the household. These trends stand in stark contrast to rising labour market participation among women. Based on an unprecedented range of new research on the detached male workforce in the UK, and located within an international context, the book offers a detailed exploration of the varied financial, family and health circumstances ‘detached men’ are living in. It also challenges conventional assumptions about the boundaries between unemployment, sickness and retirement and the true health of the labour market. Work to Welfare represents an important contribution to debates about the labour market and benefit systems and will be of interest to readers and practitioners in social policy, economics and geography.

Despite the growing significance of the voluntary sector in political planning, and despite increased research into the size, shape and structure of this sector, we still know little about its everyday dynamics. Drawing on detailed case study research with eight organisations in the UK in 1999, Moving pictures fills this gap, providing an accessible and lively account of the working of voluntary sector organisations. It identifies eight key dilemmas of voluntary action and explores how these are experienced and managed within particular organisations. In addressing these issues through practitioners' voices, it highlights the human perspective on policy and practice. The report will improve understanding of how voluntary organisations are structured and evolve, and how they respond to, or resist, opportunities and constraints. Issues covered include: the infrastructure of small and medium sized voluntary organisations, and how they achieve much with little; the values and dilemmas of volunteering; the dilemmas of strategic planning; the issues and tensions associated with external agencies and partnership working. Moving pictures will appeal to practitioners and policy makers, to workers, volunteers and users, and to a wider academic and student audience endeavouring to make sense of their findings in a critically analytical way.