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This book provides the first critically informed discussion of work and workers in the UK welfare sector under New Labour. It examines the changing nature of work and explores the context of industrial relations across the welfare industry.

There are an increasing number of studies devoted to an examination of New Labour's social policies. However, thus far there has been little in the way of substantive discussion of opposition to and conflict around key elements of New Labour's agenda for the welfare state and public sector, from those who are involved in the frontline implementation and delivery of welfare policies. Since the mid to late 1990s, there have been continual and recurring episodes of industrial action of various kinds involving social workers, teachers, lecturers, nurses, hospital ancillary staff, nursery nurses, home helps and local authority librarians among others. Welfare delivery has become a central point of industrial relations disputes in the UK today. This book provides the first critically informed discussion of work and workers in the UK welfare sector under New Labour. It examines the changing nature of work and explores the context of industrial relations across the welfare industry. While the main focus is on the workforce in state welfare, this is set within the context of recent and current shifts in the mixed economy of welfare between state, private and third sector organisations.There are an increasing number of studies devoted to an examination of New Labour's social policies. However, thus far there has been little in the way of substantive discussion of opposition to and conflict around key elements of New Labour's agenda for the welfare state and public sector, from those who are involved in the frontline implementation and delivery of welfare policies. Since the mid to late 1990s, there have been continual and recurring episodes of industrial action of various kinds involving social workers, teachers, lecturers, nurses, hospital ancillary staff, nursery nurses, home helps and local authority librarians among others. Welfare delivery has become a central point of industrial relations disputes in the UK today. This book provides the first critically informed discussion of work and workers in the UK welfare sector under New Labour. It examines the changing nature of work and explores the context of industrial relations across the welfare industry. While the main focus is on the workforce in state welfare, this is set within the context of recent and current shifts in the mixed economy of welfare between state, private and third sector organisations.

This paper explores the politics behind high-rise housing and focuses on Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, as a case study to explore and understand the impact and consequences of sustained disinvestment in social housing. In recent decades there has been much investment on a global scale in high-rise living, while dominant narratives that surround the discussion of social housing in the UK has denigrated high-rise blocks and mobilized negative narratives about the tenants they house. Stigma and polarization often lead to what is seen as the only solution: demolition. However, the process of demolition is highly political, contextualized and highlights the classed nature of urban policy and of housing provision. This directly shapes the increasingly polarized landscapes of inequality which have become so pronounced in UK urban areas. The paper makes reference to the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London in 2017 and the case of the Red Roads flats demolition in Glasgow to highlight the wider issues within the politics of social housing, the impact and consequences of sustained disinvestment in social housing and the inequality experienced within the social and geographical landscape.

This paper explores the politics behind high-rise housing and focuses on Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, as a case study to explore and understand the impact and consequences of sustained disinvestment in social housing. In recent decades there has been much investment on a global scale in high-rise living, while dominant narratives that surround the discussion of social housing in the UK has denigrated high-rise blocks and mobilized negative narratives about the tenants they house. Stigma and polarization often lead to what is seen as the only solution: demolition. However, the process of demolition is highly political, contextualized and highlights the classed nature of urban policy and of housing provision. This directly shapes the increasingly polarized landscapes of inequality which have become so pronounced in UK urban areas. The paper makes reference to the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London in 2017 and the case of the Red Roads flats demolition in Glasgow to highlight the wider issues within the politics of social housing, the impact and consequences of sustained disinvestment in social housing and the inequality experienced within the social and geographical landscape.

This paper considers some of the ways in which representations of people experiencing poverty and disadvantaged places continue to be informed by ideas of individual inadequacy, dependency and disorder. Drawing on media reportage of poverty during the Glasgow East by-election in July 2008, it argues not only that people defined as ‘poor’ and locales that are severely disadvantaged continue to be ‘othered’ through such narratives, but also that this provides a clear indication of the ways in which the politics of poverty and state welfare are increasingly being fought-out in the media. It is argued that such misrecognition amounts to social injustice and stands in the way of progressive approaches to poverty and social welfare.

The existence of the separate criminal jurisdiction in Scotland is ignored by most criminological texts purporting to consider crime and criminal justice in 'Britain' or the 'UK'. This book offers a critically-informed analysis and understanding of crime and criminal justice in contemporary Scotland. It considers key areas of criminal justice policy making in Scotland; in particular the extent to which criminal justice in Scotland is increasingly divergent from other UK jurisdictions as well as pressures that may lead to convergences in particular areas, for instance, in relation to trends in youth justice and penal policy. The book considers the extent to which Scottish crime and criminal justice is being affected both by devolution as well as the wider pressures resulting from globalization, Europeanisation and new patterns of migration.While the book has a Scottish focus, it also offers new ways of thinking about criminal justice - relating these issues to wider social divisions and inequalities in contemporary Scottish and UK society. It extends the 'gaze' and analysis of criminology by exploring issues such as environmental crime, urban disorder and the new urbanism as well as crimes of the rich and powerful and corporate crime, giving it a relevance and resonance far beyond Scotland.Criminal Justice in Scotland will be an essential text for students in Scotland taking courses in criminology, sociology, social policy, social sciences, law and police sciences, as well as criminal justice practitioners and policy makers in Scotland. It will also be an essential source for students of comparative criminology elsewhere and academics wishing to take Scotland into account in thinking about criminal justice in the UK.

This paper aims to foreground some of the main ways in which issues of social welfare and social policy came to occupy centre stage in the Scottish independence debate during recent years, culminating in the September 2014 Scottish independence referendum. It considers how issues relating to social welfare and the future of the welfare state more generally were advanced by the pro-Scottish independence YES camp as key arguments in the overall case for independence. This then disputes suggestions to the contrary that the pro-YES movement was a campaign driven primarily by issues of Scottish nationalism and national identity. Instead issues of social welfare, social justice and the creation of a more equal Scotland dominated.

Constitutional change offers the opportunity for a major departure in the nature and direction of policy, practices and governance in social policy. This article explores some of the impacts devolution has for the discipline of social policy, suggesting that devolution matters for social policy as a field of research and study, and for the analysis and understanding of developments in UK social policy. It argues that devolution has a number of implications in terms of comparative and transnational social policy, new sites of analysis, the language of social policy, the production of knowledge and the development of new policy communities within the UK. It also signals new perspectives based on evolving welfare subjectivities and around questions of territorial justice. Drawing on discussions about the nature of social policy in the 1970s in particular, suggestions are made as to how new and emerging perspectives within and across the nations of the UK serve to ‘decentre’ the social policy tradition. In essence, this article seeks to open up a debate for ‘theorising’ the discipline of social policy through a focus on devolution.