An introduction to Social Policy

Paul Spicker

Social Policy on the Web

The Web offers a growing range of on-line resources in Social Policy, but they are not always easy to access or to use. This section offers a brief guide, with links to key sources. Following the external links on this site will open a new window in your browser, so that you will still have access to this page.

Many of the sites referred to here are meta-links: they offer a gateway to a large number of connected sites.

The links on this page should all open new windows in your browser. This allows you to review the material without leaving this site.

If you have problems with any of the links, please let me know. I have to run a special programme to check links, but sites change their addresses and content so frequently that it is difficult to be certain.

General resources

• The British Library's Social Welfare Portal has links to extensive numbers of online documents, and a service which lists summaries of new literature in a monthly digest.
• The University of Amsterdam has a wide-ranging guide to sociology resources. Topics include ageing, poverty, gender, justice, welfare, housing, health etc.
• Policycommons.net has searchable links to nearly three million publications, searchable by topic.
  

International sources

These sources offer guides to virtually every country in the world.

• Governments on the Web has links to government sources around the world.
• The US Bureau of Labour Statistics and the WTO have links to national and international statistics agencies worldwide.

Several international organisations produce cross-national statistics. They include:

• The United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report
• The World Bank's World Bank Open Data
• Coverage of the Sustainable Development Goals
• The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) covers the leading industrial countries. Their work iincludes statistical data as well as reports on pensions, families and children, disabled, on income distribution and poverty, etc.is reported
• The World Health Organisations's World Health Report.

Social Policy in the European Union

This is, disappointingly, not as well covered as one might hope; the placing of European documentation online is still haphazard.

• European Union
• European documents on social protection (browse by subject, and choose 'Social Questions' followed by 'Social Protection')
• The European Observatory on Health Care Systems

Social Policy in the United States

is the subject of a wide range of sites. Many are politically charged, and not very well informed about welfare issues.

• The United States government has introduced a 'gateway' site which allows access to every level of government. For historical material on US policy, try the National Archives and Records Administration.
• The Institute for Research on Poverty offers a large set of related resources.

Social policy in developing countries

This is one of the best served fields. In addition to the World Bank and UNDP, try:

• Global Issues site This is an exceptionally well-written and presented site, covering poverty and development among other issues. It has useful links to a range of sources.
• CROP This is the International Social Science Council's Comparative Research Programme on Poverty. The website is limited but it has links to recent on-line documents and some conference papers.
• The International Fund for Agricultural Development publishes reports on rural poverty and development.
• Unesco MOST Program MOST is a 'clearing house' for material on poverty and development.
• The New Zealand Digital Library has a collection of on-line documents on development.
• The Global Policy Forum discusses a range of issues, including international social policies.
• Our world in data provides a wide range of graphic representations of data.

Other countries

Sites dealing with national social policies include:

• Germany : Gerhard Bäcker's site (in German) links to other German social policy sites.
• Japan: Social Security in Japan: towards a Japanese model of the Welfare State, by Naomi Maruo.

Social Policy in the United Kingdom

British government reports are now being produced on the web - unfortunately, their location is not always obvious. They are usually produced as House of Commons (HC) or Command (Cm) papers. The main effect of the unified site has been to make it exceedingly difficult to find anything; probably the best way is to search on the title along with 'gov.uk'.

• Policylibrary.com carries briefings on issues, and links to online papers from all the think tanks.
• Statistics on poverty in the UK are available at the New Policy Institute site. Oxfam GB also have material on poverty in the United Kingdom.
• There is a growing number of blogs and twitterfeeds. My own blog is at blog.spicker.uk. I have linked to the best, most informative blogs from there.
• History of the NHS.

Historical sources include:

• The workhouse. This extensive site contains text, images and archival material on the Poor Laws.
• The National Trust has acquired the building of a former workhouse in Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
• British Pathé News. Pathé News has video clips covering aspects of British history from 1896 to 1970. There are free previews and stills available on (for example) Beveridge and the National Health Service.
• The National Archive has a worthwhile "exhibition" on citizenship rights which includes materials on the welfare state.

Resources on specific subjects

These resources have been referred to in some of the sections of these pages. They include:

• Older people
• Mental health
• Physical disability

Online documents

Apart from government publications, the quality of on-line documentation is mixed: much of what is available are conference papers and occasional papers posted prior to conventional publication. Most documents on-line are versions of printed material; they tend to be large, they are usually presented in PDF format, and they can take a long time to download. This is a fairly miscellaneous list; suggestions would be welcome.

• The British Library's Social Welfare Portal, mentioned above, has links to an extensive range of online documents.
• The World Bank has an e-library, including a range of social policy materials classified by region.
• The British Medical Journal is available on the web, covering issues in health care, social need and administration.
• The LSE Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion publishes a large number of occasional papers.

Note too that a growing number of universities are hosting institutional repositories, making academic papers and reports freely available. The open access page on this site contains links to my own materials. Beyond that, as part of my work for Social policy: theory and practice, I have put together a basic list of readings that are available on the internet and relevant to the book's chapters.