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In an increasingly risky world the need for social security support is greater than ever. Benefits and tax credits aim to provide protection against economic risks, help families with the costs of bringing up children, enable people to save for retirement, and provide support in old age. Key goals are to redistribute income to alleviate poverty and help people maintain living standards across the lifecourse. Reform of the social security and tax systems has been at the heart of the UK Labour government's aspirations to modernise the welfare state since 1997 with major changes in both policy and administration. This second edition of the important text, Understanding Social Security, reviews these policy developments, giving readers the information and analytical tools to make sense of policy debates and reforms and to evaluate options for the future. The chapters have been extensively updated since the first edition, with new chapters on social security reform, inequalities and social security, and the new 'welfare market'. The main topics covered include: the social security safety net; racism, ethnicity, migration; social security governance; global social security; social security and the life course; the challenge of childhood poverty; reforming pensions; welfare to work; sickness, incapacity and disability; tax credits; service delivery information technology The book provides a critical examination of social security policy and practice and is essential reading for students of social policy, social work and sociology, as well as policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of social security, welfare-to-work, employment, anti-poverty strategies and welfare rights. It will be of interest to those interested in recent policy developments in these areas, emerging issues and debates, and in wider issues of the modernisation of the welfare state

Qualitative longitudinal research can make a distinctive contribution to policy discussions and to the assessment of outcomes. This article draws on research with lone-parent families over fifteen years to illustrate how change and continuity can look different over shorter and longer time periods, to discuss presenting longitudinal qualitative evidence through the selection of case studies, and to explore some of the challenges of engaging in policy debates with qualitative data.

Qualitative longitudinal research can make a distinctive contribution to policy discussions and to the assessment of outcomes. This article draws on research with lone-parent families over fifteen years to illustrate how change and continuity can look different over shorter and longer time periods, to discuss presenting longitudinal qualitative evidence through the selection of case studies, and to explore some of the challenges of engaging in policy debates with qualitative data.

Lone mothers make up a quarter of all families with children in the United Kingdom and have been one of the key target groups for activation policies for the past two decades. In a relatively short period of time, the U.K. system has changed from treating lone mothers as carers to treating them as workers. Most lone mothers are now required to seek work, or to be in work, in order to be eligible for state support. These developments place self-responsibility at the center of welfare reform and paid work as the core of self-responsibility. The focus is very much on the individuals and their labor market obligations and downplays their social obligations, for example, to care for their children or other family members. The capacity to make choices about when and how much to engage in paid work is much reduced. This article explores what these developments have meant for lone mothers in the United Kingdom. The first main section outlines the key policy approaches and measures, highlighting the underpinning concepts of self-responsibility. The discussion also explores the experiences of lone mothers in relation to these policies, drawing on data from a long-term qualitative study. The second main section focuses on a new policy development—the introduction of Universal Credit—in which promoting an employment-based self-responsibility is unequivocally central to the policy aims and design.

Tax credits were introduced in 2003 as the main instrument to deliver the Labour government's commitments to increase work incentives, make work pay and reduce poverty levels among working families. This paper uses a case study of one family over several years to explore and illustrate the experience of being in the tax credit system. The analysis highlights the importance of tax credits to family income, but also the negative impact of late and incorrect payments, payments that varied in inexplicable ways, reductions in awards for overpayments and the lack of detailed information about awards.

Tax credits were introduced in 2003 as the main instrument to deliver the Labour government's commitments to increase work incentives, to make work pay, and to reduce poverty levels among working families. This article uses a case study of one family over several years to explore and illustrate the experience of being in the tax credit system. The analysis highlights the importance of tax credits to family income, but also the negative impact of late and incorrect payments, payments that varied in inexplicable ways, reductions in awards for overpayments, and the lack of detailed information about awards.

Résumé  Le présent article étudie les origines, les objectifs et la conception des crédits d'impôt au Royaume‐Uni et examine dans quelle mesure les crédits d'impôt représentent une approche nouvelle de la politique de la sécurité sociale. Il se penche ensuite sur le rôle que peuvent jouer ces transferts pour aider les mères de familles monoparentales qui travaillent, en s'appuyant sur les expériences de ces familles pour étudier l'utilité des crédits d'impôt pour ces femmes. La discussion met en évidence les tensions entre le changement dans la famille et dans l'emploi, d'une part, et les règles relatives aux crédits d'impôt qui concernent la notification des changements de circonstances et de revenu, d'autre part.

Auszug  Dieser Beitrag untersucht Ursprünge, Ziele und Konzeption der britischen Tax Credits und geht der Frage nach, inwiefern Tax Credits einen neuen Ansatz in der sozialen Sicherheit darstellen. Daran anschließend geht es um die Rolle, die diese Transfers bei der Unterstützung berufstätiger allein erziehender Mütter spielen. Dazu wurden die Erfahrungen von Familien mit nur einem Elternteil herangezogen, um zu untersuchen, wie sich Tax Credits auf diese ausgewirkt haben. Anhand der Untersuchung werden die Spannungen deutlich, die infolge von Änderungen in Familie und Beschäftigung und den Tax‐Credit‐Vorschriften, die das Melden von Änderungen in den Lebensverhältnissen und beim Einkommen verlangen, entstehen.

Resumen  En este artículo se examinan los orígenes, los objetivos y el diseño de los créditos impositivos en el Reino Unido, y se analiza hasta qué punto esos beneficios representan un nuevo enfoque en la política de seguridad social. Luego la atención se concentra en el papel que estas transferencias desempeñan en materia de sostén a las madres empleadas que están solas al frente del hogar, recurriendo a las experiencias de las familias monoparentales para explorar cómo funcionaron en su caso los créditos impositivos. La exposición pone de relieve las tensiones entre los cambios que se han operado en la familia y el empleo y las reglas que el crédito impositivo establece respecto de la información de las modificaciones que surjan en lo concerniente a circunstancias e ingresos.

In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of the dynamics of poverty, social exclusion and labour market transitions through the analysis of large-scale panel studies. This article examines the particular contribution that longitudinal qualitative research might additionally make in these areas, illustrated by evidence from an ongoing longitudinal qualitative study of lone mothers and their children, following the families as they leave income support for employment.

The topic of benefit simplification regularly returns to the policy agenda. A simpler system, easy to understand and to deliver, is a goal that everyone wants to reach. Simplification is both a political and an administrative issue and, although these two issues cannot be entirely separated, this article focuses on the administrative side. The first section discusses how the government's commitment to modernisation has, in various ways, focused attention on the need for simplification of benefits. The second section considers simplification from the three rather different perspectives of the DWP, the claimants of benefits and the public in general.

As means-tested benefits have come to occupy a more central place in the UK system of income transfers, so the goal of an individualised system seems to have receded. However, there is also a developing policy interest in the situation and status of the individual in the social welfare system. Individual assessment of labour market circumstances is central to the New Deal programmes, and the 'partners' of those receiving social security benefits have become a target group for policy in their own right. This article outlines the policy issues, describes the measures that have been introduced so far, compares these with the Australian moves towards 'partial individualisation', and discusses some key issues in the reform agenda.