There is a broad consensus that the impact of austerity measures on people in the United Kingdom will vary from place to place. However, what is less clear is that some people in some local authorities will be hit hardest. The pace in which cuts have been wielded by the coalition government has allowed local authorities little scope to maneuver and devise a good strategy for dealing with the huge loss of revenue in their local budgets. This book seeks to analyze how cutbacks pose severe challenges to local authorities in the United Kingdom, even threatening their ability to provide adequate delivery of benefits and public services to their constituents.

Local government affects us all. Wherever we live, in towns, cities, villages, or the smallest of communities, there are locally elected councils tasked with representing people’s interests in the running of the local area. This involves, inter alia, providing public services, maintaining local spaces, and acting as a level of democratic governance within the broader constitutional and executive structure of the state. To fulfil these responsibilities, though, local government must be democratically legitimate; it must have at its disposal reasonable means and resources to function; and it must enjoy a healthy and balanced relationship with centralised government. This book explores and analyses the extent to which local government in the different parts of the United Kingdom is able to function effectively and democratically. It draws from local councillors’ views in analysing the state of local government under the current constitutional and governmental arrangements, discussing issues such as councils’ relationships with central government; citizen engagement; finance and public services; and the impact of recent reforms. It contrasts and compares the different approaches adopted in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, also setting out and discussing possible reforms of local government across the United Kingdom. While the focus is on the United Kingdom, the work includes a comparison with other relevant jurisdictions.

Europeans are living through the deepest economic recession since World War II. What began as a meltdown in the global financial system in 2008 has been transformed into a new political reality of austerity which threatens over six decades of social solidarity and expanding human rights protection across Council of Europe member states. Austerity measures have exacerbated the already severe human consequences of the economic crisis marked by record levels of unemployment. The whole spectrum of human rights has been affected and many vulnerable groups of people have been hit disproportionately. Poverty, including child deprivation, is deepening and is likely to have long-term effects. The economic crisis is also undermining the capacity of central and local authorities to ensure human rights protection. Human rights provide a universal normative framework and operational redlines within which governments’ economic and social policies must function. This Issue Paper provides practical guidance to governments in navigating the historic opportunities and difficult policy choices they face in upholding human rights in times of economic constraint. The critical role of ombudsmen, human rights commissions and equality bodies is also highlighted. The Commissioner for Human Rights proposes a set of actionable recommendations which help forge a new path along which governments can align their economic recovery policies with their commitments for human rights. It is necessary to reinvigorate the European social model based on the foundation of human dignity, inter-generational solidarity and access to justice for all.

Leading Local Government: The Role of Directly Elected Mayors provides a critical assessment of the role occupied by directly elected mayors in the leadership of English local government. Built on original research and historical analysis, the book examines the impact of elected mayors upon public engagement, devolution and local leadership.

Municipalities around the world have increasingly used inclusionary housing programs to address their housing shortages. This book problematizes those programs in London and New York City by offering an empirical, research-based perspective on the socio-spatial dimensions of inclusionary housing approaches in both cities. The aim of those programs is to produce affordable housing and foster greater socio-economic inclusion by mandating or incentivizing private developers to include affordable housing units within their market-rate residential developments. The starting point of this book is the so-called “poor door” practice in London and New York City, which results in mixed-income developments with separate entrances for “affordable housing” and wealthier market-rate residents. Focusing on this “poor door” practice allowed for a critical look at the housing program behind it. By exploring the relationship between inclusionary housing, new-build gentrification, and austerity urbanism, this book highlights the complexity of the planning process and the ambivalences and interdependencies of the actors involved. Thereby, it provides evidence that the provision of affordable housing or social mixing through this program has only limited success and, above all, that it promotes – in a sense through the “back door” – the very gentrification and displacement mechanisms it is supposed to counteract. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of housing studies, planning, and urban sociology, as well as planners and policymakers who are interested in the consequences of their own housing programs.

Austerity is perhaps the major challenge of our times, given the speed at which it arrived and the consequences of its impact upon society. The global financial crash and economic downturn was the catalyst for change and, against a backdrop of advice from experts adverse to Keynesian economics, the ideology of austerity grew and became the dominant thinking to steer economies out of recession. This comprehensive volume draws upon both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to provide a varied and contextually rich insight into sport, policy, and politics in an era of austerity. The authors cover a wide range of issues in a variety of organisational contexts and geographies, including sports participation across different socio-demographic groups; the impact of austerity on the provision of community sports; disability sport; public management of sport facilities; the performance of public sport facilities with respect to access, finance, utilisation, and customer satisfaction; the potential impact of austerity on sport for development; elite sport; and social inclusion and poverty. This book makes a significant contribution to the current academic debate, while raising important considerations for policymakers and managers. It was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics.

Providing students with a complete foundation of knowledge and understanding for each process, this step-by-step guide will introduce them to the four main aspects of social work practice, and help them to apply theory to practice across settings and service user groups.

In May 2015, general elections in the United Kingdom shocked the world as a new Conservative Government was voted into power, ending five years of Coalition governance. Both a response to the actions of the Coalition Government and a reflection on the implications of actions taken during the first hundred days of the new Conservative Government, this book could not be more timely in its assessment of the current and future states of UK social policies. The first book to consider Coalition social policy in its entirety, it not only reviews and evaluates the extent of change under the Coalition--looking at the impact of factors like austerity measures on social policies and politics more broadly--but also draws out what the Coalition years will mean for the incoming government, outlining both the challenges and opportunities of its legacy.

As the system of governance and delivery of social welfare in the UK radically changes, this important new book argues that the extent of this change is such that it could be considered a fundamental transformation or even a revolution. It shows how a new public governance perspective has replaced the dominance of new public management, reflecting the increasingly plural and fragmented nature of public policy implementation. Drawing on examples across a range of policy areas it assesses how changes in social policy and governance interact in the delivery of the main areas of social policy and social welfare. The book will be essential reading for researches, students and policy makers.

The new edition of this landmark international work builds on the previous two volumes, offering a window onto occupational therapy practice, theory and ideas in different cultures and geographies. It emphasizes the importance of critically deconstructing and engaging with the broader context of occupation, particularly around how occupational injustices are shaped through political, economic and historical factors. Centering on the wider social and political aspects of occupation and occupation-based practices, this textbook aims to inspire occupational therapy students and practitioners to include transformational elements into their practice. It also illustrates how occupational therapists from all over the world can affect positive changes by engaging with political and historical contexts. Divided into six sections, the new edition begins by analyzing the key concepts outlined throughout, along with an overview on the importance and practicalities of monitoring and evaluation in community projects. Section Two explores occupation and justice emphasizing that issues of occupational injustice are present everywhere, in different forms: from clinical settings to community-based rehabilitation. Section Three covers the enactment of different Occupational Therapies with a focus on the multiplicity of occupational therapy from the intimately personal to the broadly political. Section Four engages with the broader context of occupational therapy from the political to the financial. The chapters in this section highlight the recent financial crisis and the impact it has had on people's everyday life. Section Five collects a range of different approaches to working to enable a notion of occupational justice. Featuring chapters from across the globe, Section Six concludes by highlighting the importance and diversity of educational practices. - Comprehensively covers occupational therapy theory, methodology and practice examples related to working with underserved and neglected populations - Gives a truly global overview with contributions from over 100 international leading experts in the field and across a range of geographical, political and linguistic contexts - Demonstrates how occupational injustices are shaped through political, economic and historical factors - Advocates participatory approaches which work for those who experience inequalities - Includes a complete set of new chapters - Explores neoliberalism and financial contexts, and their impact on occupation - Examines the concept of disability - Discusses theoretical and practical approaches to occupational justice