From Welfare State to Welfare Society: a critical discourse of post-2010 social security policy

Abstract

This thesis examines a sample of policy texts (speeches and texts) through a Critical Discourse Analysis underpinned by Bacchi's 'What is the Problem Represented to be' (WPR) approach to uncover the underlying problematisations that lie behind social security policy post-2010.

Full text

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From Welfare State to Welfare Society:
a critical discourse analysis of post-2010 social security policy

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ABSTRACT
Policy texts are a valuable way to understand the linguistic and discursive
mechanisms used in government and politics to legitimise ideological and
policy preferences. This thesis examines a sample of policy texts (speeches
and papers) through a Critical Discourse Analysis underpinned by Bacchi’s
‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (‘WPR’) approach to uncover the
underlying problematisations that lie behind social security policy post-2010.
Semi-structured interviews with a small sample of practitioners further
examine how policy is enacted and negotiated. The texts and interviews
indicate both continuities and change from the New Labour era; continuity is
represented through an intensification of a ‘work-first’ approach through
omnipresent conditionality whilst change is observed through the wholesale
retrenchment of social security, with the interviews detecting an emergent
process of governing through stigma and maladministration. Austerity is
repeatedly invoked to provide cover for the furtherance of working-age
inequalities. I argue attention must be paid to the agnotological technologies
employed to divert, and indeed silence, attention from alternative
explanations. The consequences of new and intensified policy measures are
the heralding of a new Welfare Society, in which working-age social security is
to be replaced by a leaky secondary safety net where need and provision are
detached and income protection the preserve of families and charity.

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List of abbreviations
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CSJ Centre for Social Justice
DWP Department for Work and Pensions
WPR What’s the Problem Represented to be? Approach

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT!....................................................................................................................!2!
List of abbreviations!.....................................................................................................!3!
INTRODUCTION!..........................................................................................................!6!
Chapter 1: UK social security policy post-2010: scoping the field!.......................!9!
Continuity!or!change?!................................................................................................................!9!
Overview!on!key!critical!scholarship!of!Thatcher!and!New!Labour!years!..................................!10!
Valorisation!of!(paid)!work!.......................................................................................................!13!
Individualisation!of!poverty:!moralising!the!poor!.....................................................................!14!
‘Welfare!dependency’,!agnotology!and!anti-welfare!commonsense!.........................................!15!
Big!Society,!Small!State?!...........................................................................................................!16!
Localisation!..............................................................................................................................!17!
The!cumulative!and!unequal!impact!of!austerity!......................................................................!18!
Universal!Credit!........................................................................................................................!18!
Negotiating!policy:!social!security!policy!on!the!ground!...........................................................!19!
Chapter 2: Critical Discourse Analysis, policy enactment and What’s the
Problem Represented to be: a methodology or a process?!..................................!20!
Why!Critical!Discourse!Analysis?!..............................................................................................!21!
A!WPR!framework!....................................................................................................................!23!
Policy!enactments:!negotiating!policy!......................................................................................!24!
Research!questions!..................................................................................................................!26!
Sampling!and!analytical!approach!............................................................................................!26!
Interviews!with!policy!actors!....................................................................................................!28!
Ethics!.......................................................................................................................................!29!
Chapter 3: Social security post-2010: austerity a means to an end?!................!31!
Breakdown!Britain!...................................................................................................................!31!
‘Framing!and!taming’!through!agnotology!................................................................................!32!
Continuities!from!previous!administrations!..............................................................................!34!
Paid!work!as!the!‘silver!bullet’!.....................................................................................................!34!
The!importance!of!family:!muscular!interventionism!.................................................................!36!
Changes!from!New!Labour:!different!policy!goals?!...................................................................!39!
The!benefit!cap:!a!fair!policy?!......................................................................................................!39!
Localisation:!shifting!the!blame?!.................................................................................................!40!
Chapter 4: Discursive tools and techniques!...........................................................!43!
Strivers!and!skivers?!.................................................................................................................!43!
Cameron’s!Bluewater!welfare!speech!.......................................................................................!44!
Interdiscursivity,!evidence!and!key!words!................................................................................!46!
Chapter 5: Space between the rules?!......................................................................!49!
The!‘system’!.............................................................................................................................!49!
Discretionality!..........................................................................................................................!50!
Institutional!power!...................................................................................................................!51!
Discursive,!subjectification!and!lived!effects!.............................................................................!52!
The!use!of!sanctions!....................................................................................................................!52!
The!implementation!of!Universal!Credit!.....................................................................................!53!
Work!for!all?!................................................................................................................................!54!
Conclusion!....................................................................................................................!57!

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Bibliography!................................................................................................................!60!
Appendix A: Sample of texts analysed!...................................................................!81!
Appendix B: sample of interview!............................................................................!82!
Appendix C: draft interview schedule!....................................................................!89!
Appendix D: participation information sheet!.......................................................!92!
Appendix E: Participant Consent form!..................................................................!94!
Appendix F: key word frequencies!.........................................................................!96!
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INTRODUCTION
After the 2007 credit crunch developed into the fully-blown global financial
crisis of 2008, a period of fiscal stimulus followed under New Labour leading
up to the 2010 UK general election. It was late in this electoral cycle
(November 2008) when the Conservatives abandoned their promise to match
Labour spending plans (Summers!2008).
The election of a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government heralded a
prolonged period of austerity, in which spending cuts were justified to reduce
the national financial deficit. The social security budget, barely mentioned in
the Coalition agreement, came under particular scrutiny for cuts.
New Labour’s approach to social security between 1997 and 2010 was ‘work-
centric’ in believing work to be the best route out of poverty, but accompanied
by a Moral Underclass Discourse (Levitas 2005) whereby the cause of poverty
was contended to be individual and behavioural rather than structural.
Nevertheless, New Labour fiscal policies showed a mildly redistributive effect
although little change in equality (Hills et al 2015).
As someone with a practitioner background in social welfare law, my
academic interest had been piqued by the completion of a thesis on the
emergence and institutionalisation of emergency food (Bridge 2014). The
topic area has remained of considerable personal interest and concern. In
particular, the public popularity of Coalition and Conservative welfare reform
seems at odds with the deleterious lived experience of such reforms (Patrick
2014). Whilst there is an extensive literature on UK social security post-2010,
much of that scholarship approaches the issue through an evaluative
framework in which policy is a process of evidence based ‘fixing’. My thesis
adopts a different approach, underscored by Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the
problem represented to be’ (WPR) framework, which seeks to understand the
underlying problematisations through which we have been governed post-
2010. It adopts a more radical approach to identify the ‘deep conceptual

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premises’ (Bacchi 2009: xix) that make it possible to invisibilise some
problems whilst accentuating others. The consequences of failing to identify
the problem representations behind policy is that critiquing or evaluating
policy without doing so is partial and superficial. It fails to acknowledge the
social and institutional processes of power, context and access through which
discourse is mediated.
My thesis therefore provides a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of post-2010
social security policy which illuminates its underpinning ‘conceptual logics’
(Bacchi 2009: 19). By adopting an explicit ‘bottom up’ perspective privileging
the position of oppressed groups, I seek to obtain insight into the use of
discourse as a means to acquire hegemonic dominance through means of
socio-cognition (van Dijk 1993). My aspiration is therefore to contribute to a
literature which exposes and illuminates the techniques that lie behind
everyday ‘welfare commonsense’ (Jensen 2014: 1).
A research design employing a flexible CDA approach is employed to
interrogate a small sample of key policy texts that identify predominant
themes of continuity and change from previous political administrations. The
flexibility of the approach is intended to allow for a micro and macro approach
that considers specific discursive linguistic techniques as well as interpreting
meaning within texts. The CDA approach is triangulated with interviews with
a small sample of policy actors that highlight the enactment, negotiation and
possibilities of resistance of policy by practitioners.
The research questions are structured to interrogate the key themes of
continuity and change, how reform has been operationalised and in whose
interests whilst the final question, using participant interviews, asks how
power is exercised and resisted by practitioners and policymakers.
A Literature Review provides a background to key scholarship debates
surrounding the Thatcher and New Labour years. It considers how
dependency, individualisation of poverty and the valorisation of work are

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conceptualised by the pre and post-2010 administrations before reflecting on
the more distinctive aspects of Coalition policy such as the Big Society,
Universal Credit and localisation. The methodological chapter sets out the
research design, justifying the use of an explicit socio-political approach
whilst providing a rationale for the use of semi-structured interviews to
capture the messiness of everyday policy enactment.
The first data chapter provides a discussion and analysis of the data identified
through the CDA. The following chapter interrogates more closely the specific
discursive techniques employed that assist in identifying what the problem is
represented to be. The last data chapter focuses primarily on interviews with
policy actors to identify the predominant themes of continuity and change but
as importantly, to see how power is exercised and resisted between
policymakers, practitioners and agencies.
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Chapter 1: UK social security policy post-2010: scoping the
field
This literature review provides a critical overview of key literature concerned
with social security1 reform during the Thatcher and New Labour years before
engaging with the substantive policy issues and themes in the Coalition and
Conservative administrations that have been identified within extant
scholarship.
The review considers continuities such as the prevalence of a ‘work first’
approach to social security before examining how think tanks such as the
Centre of Social Justice set the foundations for the post-2010 years. It
considers briefly how ‘compassionate conservatism’ and the Big Society were
invoked to arguably provide a sheen prior to the introduction of coercive
policies post-2010. The review specifically considers the Coalition’s flagship
policy Universal Credit as well as a decision to localise aspects of social
security. Finally, the review considers how policy is negotiated at street-level.
Continuity or change?
In analysing continuities and change, Hall (1993) provides a useful evaluative
framework. Whilst a change in policy settings and mechanisms may reflect
first or second order change, Hall argues that it is only when policy goals are
changed that we can confirm third order change (Hall 1993).
Whilst Hall (2011) highlights the different variants of neoliberalism between
Thatcher, New Labour and the Coalition, there is a consensus that a focus on
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1!This study uses ‘social security’ rather than ‘welfare’ although its meaning is often interchangeable.
Whilst the commonality of ‘welfare’ in mainstream discourse risks making ‘social security’ appear dated,
I argue that in the tradition of CDA, it is important to side with the ‘oppressed’. As discussed, welfare is
now broadly associated with a pejorative sense of ‘dependency’ whilst I argue ‘social security’ reflects a
system intended to provide inter-dependent support across the life cycle.
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marketised solutions has led to a hegemonic process in which the post-war
welfare settlement has been at best residualised and worse, dismantled
(Bamfield 2012, Mabbett 2013). The question of whether post-2010 social
security policy reflects substantive change appears unresolved. On one hand,
the supremacy of a ‘work-first’ approach (Hayton 2012), ‘ubiquitous
conditionality’ (Dwyer and Wright 2014) and the omnipresent use of ‘welfare
dependency’ as
the
predominant social problem (Clarke and Newman 2012)
all suggest a ‘framing consensus’ (Hughes 1998: 4) which Deacon and Patrick
(2011) argue has been underscored by a moralist and behaviourist approach
grounded in conservative communitarianism (see also Lister and Bennett
2010). On the other hand, the wholesale and gendered retrenchment of social
security suggests the goals post-2010 have changed (Taylor-Gooby and Stoker
2011, Mabbett 2013). Whilst continuities can sit alongside change, this thesis
troubles the dilemma in whether Coalition reform reflects ‘continuation with
intensification’ (McKay and!Rowlingson 2012: 146) or something more
substantive in which ‘the essential policy thrust lies in a determination to roll
back central state obligations in poverty relief and income maintenance which
had hitherto been accepted by all post-war administrations’ (Drakeford and
Davidson 2013: 1).
Overview on key critical scholarship of Thatcher and New Labour years
Whilst comparisons between Thatcher, New Labour and Coalition
administrations risk overlooking structural societal factors such as the
strength of the economy, labour market participation and trade union
bargaining power, they do reveal intellectual influences pre-2010. For
example under Thatcher, MacLeavy (2011) highlights a move to greater
selectivism premised on the need for greater individual responsibility whilst
Mabbett (2013) points to an increased role for the market under Thatcher’s
administration. Nevertheless, as Hayton (2012) highlights, it was the Major-
led Conservative government that enacted more substantive change. The
replacement of Unemployment Benefit with Jobseekers Allowance in 1996
with the introduction of the Child Support Agency are measures that can be
considered ‘creeping conditionality’ (Dwyer 2004: 1).

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During the Thatcher and Major era, New Right theorists (particularly Murray
and Mead) began to influence mainstream political thought, particularly in
characterising poverty as an individual failing (Driver 2011). Whilst
prescriptions differed, the symptoms identified were broadly similar. Murray
(1984) pathologised the motives of an ‘underclass’; Mead (1992: 212)
highlighted ‘[the] social problem [as] the dysfunction of the poor rather than
inequality’. Garrett (2015) illuminates how that influence extended to latter
New Labour years, pointing to DWP Secretary of State James Purnell (2008)
arguing for harsher conditionality and policies to address the ‘culture of
dependency’ and ‘worklessness’. This ideological cross-party move to the right
is also observed in the emergence of the Orange Book Liberals2!!who supported
Conservative social security reform during the Coalition years (Driver 2011).
Labour’s intellectual approach to social security was described as
‘Anglicanised communitarianism’ (Deacon 2002), a combination of Christian
socialism espoused by ministers such as Blair, Field and Straw and a
communitarianism advocating a shared sense of community underpinned by
specific moral values. Whilst the positive impact on child and pensioner
poverty under New Labour is rarely disputed (Hirsch 2006), its social
security approach has been critiqued. As Williams (2004: 414) points out, a
narrow approach based on ‘education and educability’ reflects a social
investment project rather than addressing human flourishing. Secondly, the
case for redistribution was never overtly made; instead, it was a redistribution
by stealth (Taylor-Gooby and Martin 2008, Annesley 2001). Finally, Deacon
(2002) highlights the paradox between New Labour’s reliance on a moral
prescription drawn on family values and personal against the inevitable social
changes of modernity articulated by social theorists Beck (1992) and Giddens
(1990).
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2!Orange Book liberals refer to the Orange Book (Marshall and Laws 2004), a set of essays written by
eleven leading Liberal Democrats, eight of whom became members of the Coalition government. Orange
Book liberalism is considered a shift towards a more classical economic liberalism rather than the social
and cultural liberalism that many Liberal Democrats subscribe to (Beech 2008).

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More consensually, the literature draws attention to New Labour’s work-
centric approach to social security policy (Deacon and Mann 1998, Lister
2010). Not only is the application of conditionality accelerated during this
period (Dwyer 2004, Wright 2012) but the use of political discourse arguably
embeds the importance of work(fare) in the collective national psyche
(Deeming 2015, Marston 2008). Levitas (1996, 2005) castigates this
preoccupation with paid work and moral regulation as ‘punk Durkheimian’, in
which social exclusion is discursively embedded with integration in the labour
market rather than the multiple dimensions of poverty and inequality. In!
distinguishing between a typology of three discourses of social exclusion, she
aligns New Labour firmly with a Moral Underclass Discourse (Levitas 2005); a
weak version of social exclusion that focuses on changing individuals’
perceived deficits rather than the power of capital (Veit-Wilson 1998).
The failure to generate a political constituency of support for its redistribution
measures (see Taylor-Gooby 2004) arguably opened up the space for a
coarsening language towards benefit claimants – for instance Purnell (2008)
asserting ‘no free riding on the welfare state’ whilst post-2010 Reeves, DWP
Shadow, declared Labour ‘is not the party of people on benefits’ (Gentleman
2015). Such rhetoric was unsurprisingly accompanied by harsher public
attitudes towards unemployment benefit claimants (Taylor-Gooby 2013). This
adds to a prominent literature (Pantazis 2016, Ross 2013) which highlights
how the failure to make the case for redistribution enabled the post-2010
governments to capitalise on the ‘common knowledge’ (Culpepper 2008: 1) of
‘welfare dependency’ and ‘worklessness’ to go further and beyond the New
Labour agenda.
Béland (2009) suggests these ‘discursive weapons’ are operationalised to
underscore the imperatives of reform; the Coalition was arguably provided
with [New Labour discursive] ammunition to weaponise their own agenda, for
instance the pathologisation of larger families (‘benefit broods’) through the
household benefit cap (Jensen and Tyler 2015: 1).

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The remainder of this chapter focusses on post-2010 social security policy,
divided into thematic sections which can be identified within the extant
literature. Rather than an in-depth study on each theme, they are intended to
provide an overview of the substantive issues.
Valorisation of (paid) work
Whilst welfare dependency is posited as
the
social problem, the focus on paid
work can be argued to be
the
policy prescription, as reflected in a literature
pointing to a ‘workfarist’ turn (Slater 2014, Deeming 2015). The literature
highlights the ubiquity in policy circles of terms such as ‘work-first’, ‘work for
all’ and ‘work-ready’ (Hayton 2012). Driver (2011: 106) points to a ‘broad
[cross-party] political consensus around work-orientated welfare reform’ in
which conditionality and active labour market policies are posited as primary
mechanisms. Whilst representing continuity, there is a broad consensus that
conditionality regulations appreciably widened and intensified post-2010
(Beatty et al 2015). Whether the curtailment of migrants’ right to benefits
(see Dwyer and Scullion 2014), the application of a genuine prospect of work
test (Krishna 2014) or most controversially, the application of in-work
conditionality for low paid employees under Universal Credit (Judge 2014),
describing the application of conditionality under the Coalition as ‘ubiquitous’
(Dwyer and Wright 2014) seems appropriate.
Whilst a recent Work and Pensions Committee (2015: para 6) report raises
concerns regarding the impacts of conditionality, they nevertheless conclude
‘benefit conditionality is appropriate and necessary’. This is perhaps
surprising when no robust body of evidence reflects its efficacy. Whilst some
studies demonstrate successful short and medium term outcomes (Van den
Berg et al 2004, Abbring et al 2005), UK evidence is relatively sparse
although Loopstra et al (2015) found only 7% of sanctioned claimants went on
to find work whilst 36% went to ‘unknown destinations’, research broadly
mirrored in the international context (Wu et al 2014, Arni et al 2013). Data
gathered in academic and voluntary sector research suggests conditionality is

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ineffective – and indeed counter-productive – when applied to more vulnerable
groups such as homeless people, disabled people, lone parents, young people
and particular groups of women (Beatty et al 2015, Fawcett Society 2015,
Watts et al 2014). A recent academic blog from the Welfare Conditionality
project reflects concerns at the use of stick rather than carrot: conditionality
is regarded as a ‘big blunt stick … [with] significant negative consequences’
(Dwyer 2016). Similar concerns are observed when assessing the Coalition’s
active labour market policies (Carter and Whitworth 2015).
Research further illuminates how work is narrowly conceptualised in pre and
post-2010 policy. Fraser (2003) and Levitas (2005) highlight how a policy
focus on paid work excludes conceptualising domestic work, caring work,
independent living and volunteering!as equally valid.
Individualisation of poverty: moralising the poor
Whilst the New Right dependency theorists never disappeared, the 2007/8
financial crisis arguably provided an opportunity for a re-iteration of
individual deficit as the cause of poverty (Pantazis 2016). Around this time
the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) (established by Iain Duncan-Smith)
produced two reports
Breakdown Britain
and
Breakthrough Britain
that are
considered highly influential in post-2010 policy (Slater 2014, Pantazis
2016). They highlight five pathways to poverty: ‘family breakdown,
educational failure, worklessness and economic dependence, addictions and
indebtedness’ (CSJ 2006: 15). This conceptualisation regards poverty as
constitutive of personal failure and poor behavioural choices, and widely
shared in neoliberal welfare regimes (Wiggan 2012, Wright 2016). Wright
(2016), in particular, points out the prevalence of a dominant model whereby
moral rationalities are advanced as explanations for ‘wrong choices’ and
therefore behavioural measures (particularly coercive conditionality) are
justified as solutions. Drawing on her own research and other standpoints (see
Lister 2004, Fraser 2005), she highlights the relevance of lived experience in
a counter model where the social injuries of lived experience (for instance
disempowerment and stigma) are overlooked in favour of the market. This

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subtext, where social security policy is operationalised to moralise the poor, is
drawn on by Patrick and Brown (2012) where they rhetorically ask why other
stratas of society are exempted from the same gaze.
‘Welfare dependency’, agnotology and anti-welfare commonsense
As discussed earlier, the propagation of a ‘dependency culture’ is most readily
attributed to Murray (Dean and Taylor-Gooby 1992) although other
dependency theorists such as Mead and Le Grand are also considered
influential (Wright 2012, 2016). The concept of welfare dependency, and its
companion ‘worklessness’, appear to derive from a belief in agentic hyper-
rationality that are contested by a body of scholarship (Wright 2016,
Shildrick et al 2012). These critiques argue such viewpoints simplify the
complexity of human decision-making, exaggerate levels of intergenerational
worklessness and moreover underplay the significant ‘work-ethic’ found in
deprived areas. By focussing simply on a ‘desire’ to work, it ignores the
quality, pay and availability of work, which are often exacerbated in certain
locales, for instance seaside and post-industrial towns. Dean (2012)
convincingly reminds us the role of social policy should be to smooth the
social, economic and cultural impacts over the life course - in essence,
proposing a ‘good dependency’, a phrase used by Fraser and Gordon (1994) to
capture our inter-dependency in caring for each other.
So whilst scholarship continues to unpick ‘welfare dependency’ (see Jensen
2014, Garrett 2015), its continued usage in mainstream discourse has
allowed the term to become a ‘notion of truth’ (Clarke and Newman 2012:
304). Taking on this truth status, welfare dependency has become a ‘doxa’, a
term Jensen (2014) draws from Bourdieu (1972: 167): ‘that which goes
without saying because it comes without saying’. The risk of doxosophy is
closing off public discourse from critical interrogation, allowing for myth-
making to take hold (Jensen 2014), for instance the ‘zombie argument’ over
intergenerational cultures of worklessness, which retains mythical status
despite robust evidence to the contrary (Macdonald et al 2014: 200).

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Jensen (2014) argues such ‘doxa’ are regular constituents in the landscape of
‘anti-welfare commonsense’, a point Allen et al (2014) accentuate by
highlighting the influence of semiotic signifiers such as the figure of the
‘scrounger’ circulating in media representations of poverty (so called ‘poverty
porn’). Politicians have seemingly skilfully invoked this notion of common
sense which is ‘easily available … [has] no complicated ideas, requires no
sophisticated argument … [and] works intuitively’ (Hall and O’Shea (2013: 9)
Slater (2014) similarly uses Robert Proctor’s use of ‘agnotology’ – the study of
ignorance – to critique Coalition social security policy by questioning ‘how or
why we don’t know’, in effect the reverse of epistemology (Proctor and
Schiebinger 2008: vii). So whilst anti-welfare commonsense portrays an
argument as easily understood, agnotology deliberately ignores alternative
explanations, or selectively adapts evidence to suit one’s ideology, in effect
‘decision-based evidence making’ (Slater 2008: 219).
Big Society, Small State?
Leading up to 2010, the consensus view holds that Cameron attempted a
process of detoxification of the Tory ‘nasty party’ brand (Page 2015, Hayton
2012). A ‘compassionate conservatism’ was signalled through more friendly
environmental, social and welfare announcements (Ellison 2011) arguably
spawning the Big Society. Whilst Ellison (2011) argues its ideological
foundations as a Burkean, pragmatic and compassionate conservatism, the
Big Society remains relevant as a Conservative signpost to its ideological
craving for a smaller state (Levitas 2012a).
By proposing a society whereby social justice is to be realised through
particularist notions of virtue and responsibility (marriage, family, good
behaviour) - highlighting ‘welfare dependency’ as a social ill - the Big Society’s
chief architect Philip Blond (2012) aims for a ‘shadow state’ where social
security is provided by charities, faith organisations and family. A consensus
of critical scholarship contests that view by highlighting the flawed nature of
the Big Society’s premises; whether failing to acknowledge the gendered re-

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appropriation of unpaid work for the needs of capital, allowing a classed and
spatial misappropriation of resources through ‘localisation’ or providing an
exclusionary notion of community for those that don’t meet its behavioural
expectations (Kisby 2010, Levitas 2012a). By reading the Big Society through
Levitas’ (2012a: 320) ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’, its true intents are
unmasked, revealing compassionate conservatism as little more than a
chimeric sop (Lister and Bennett 2010).
Localisation
While localisation is not a new phenomenon in welfare policy (see Paz-Fuchs
2008), its introduction in the UK (through council tax benefit, social fund,
regional variation in the benefit cap and potentially Attendance Allowance)
are significant developments (Bushe et al 2013, Garvey 2015). Whilst
localised decision-making can be justified for reasons of efficacy, democracy
and sustainability (Andreotti et al 2012), others suggest the decision to
localise Council Tax Benefit risks undermining the simplification objectives of
Universal Credit (Royston 2012, Judge 2013) but more cynically, represents
a ‘localism of political and fiscal convenience’ (Berry and Sinclair 2011).
Further exploration highlights potential deleterious consequences for those
most in need, highlighting the fallaciousness nature of any local autonomy due
to cuts and regulation governing the protection of specific groups such as
pensioners (Drakeford and Davidson 2013, Grover 2012). Localisation’s
agnotological power potentially allows such measures to deflect responsibility
for income maintenance (Clarke and Newman 2012). Such centrally managed
localism may therefore be a poisoned chalice in the contexts of severe funding
cuts; as Kenway argues (2011: 2), it is ‘a policy-making decision in which
central government departments asserts their right to decree the outcomes
they want without taking responsibility for seeing that those outcomes can be
achieved’.

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The cumulative and unequal impact of austerity
With some exceptions, this review has predominantly presented social
security policy post-2010 as continuity rather than change. However, the
literature arguably fails to give sufficient emphasis to the cumulative and
unprecedented effect of changes. Nevertheless, NAWRA (2016) and Beatty
and Fothergill (2016) have lists split between 2010-2015 and post -2015,
each extending to over 20 pages. There is a considerable literature that
highlights the unequal application and distribution of cuts; how women are
impacted twice as hard as men (Fawcett Society 2012), the spatial
inequalities whereby deprived locales are hit hardest (Beatty and Fothergill
2013) or the detrimental impact of cuts on disabled people, homeless people
and lone parents (Patrick 2011, Watts et al 2014). Whilst Meers (2015)
highlights how increased use of discretionary payments is invoked as a legal
defence against the roughest edges of policy, he also highlights how equality
impact assessments on individual policies fail to provide a cumulative picture.
Furthermore, a growing UK literature argues that the adequacy and efficacy
of social security is linked to the rapid escalation of emergency food post-2010
(Garthwaite 2016, Lambie-Mumford 2014).
Universal Credit
Universal Credit, the flagship of Coalition policy, was intended to revolutionise
social security, through the simplification of a complex myriad of benefits and
heightened work incentives (DWP 2010a). There was and still is little dissent
as to its principles (Tarr and Finn 2012, Finch 2016) but growing concerns
are emerging regarding its implementation and design (Stone 2015, Kumar
2015). Whilst Bell (2015) suggests its glacial rollout reflects fundamental
design issues, his observation that work incentives have been severely
curtailed is more pertinent. Duncan-Smith’s resignation from his cabinet post
in March 2016 suggests McKay and Rowlingson (2012) were prescient in
identifying a battle between ‘the Cutters’ (Treasury) and ‘the Reformers’
(DWP). This can best be illustrated as initially UC was expected to be
implemented at a nett cost whilst now OBR projections suggest it will

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ultimately save the Treasury £3.1bn pa (Asthana 2016). Due to its
residualisation and slow roll-out, there will be a need to re-evaluate the policy
if ever fully implemented.
Negotiating policy: social security policy on the ground
Whilst the CDA inevitably focuses on various texts that reflect the formation
and distribution of policy, it would be naïve to reflect on such texts as if
implemented in a rational and linear way. Conversely, Lipsky (2010)
illuminates how in the complex enactment of sometimes overlapping and
contradictory policy directives, decisions taken by front line workers
constitute policy. The increased use of discretionality (see Meers 2015) -
through discretionary housing payments, financial assistance schemes -
heightens the importance of decision-makers. Fletcher (2011) found there
were ‘profound implications for severely disadvantaged groups’ in the
application of discretion in Jobcentre Plus whilst an Oxfam report discovered
offensive treatment of Slovak Roma migrants in a Glasgow jobcentre through
regulatory techniques such as administrative gatekeeping, long delays and
lack of interpreting services (Paterson et al 2011). These highlight that when
there is ‘space in the rules’ (Collins 2016: 221) it is fair to describe decision-
makers as policy-makers. Whilst research suggests front line staff may
subvert, resist, extend or alter policy intents (Collins 2016, Alden 2015),
there is less research in how different discourses influence those processes
and how governance is shaped by relationships
between
state organisations
and the adaptations those people make to shifting ‘policy terms and fashions’
(Jones 2014: 608). Accordingly, decision-makers can be observed as
susceptible to their own governmentalities and accordingly mediate policy
through the uncomfortable but necessary negotiation of ethical, political and
emotional dilemmas (Jones 2013).

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Chapter 2: Critical Discourse Analysis, policy enactment and
What’s the Problem Represented to be: a methodology or a
process?
This chapter outlines the methodological approach taken in this study and the
rationale for this. After outlining the research questions, I provide a detailed
discussion of the research design and methods including sampling and my
approach to data analysis, whilst reflecting on the limitations and blindspots
of these. I also provide a discussion of the ethical issues pertaining to this
research.
In adopting an ontological perspective that highlights the power of discourses
(and the representations and constructions contained within them) to shape
reality, the study uses a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) informed by critical
theory. Discourse is:
a cluster (or formation) of ideas, images and practices, which provide ways of
talking about, forms of knowledge and conduct associated with a particular
topic … in society (Hall 1997: 6)
Discourse, in a Foucauldian sense, is a means of representing, constructing
and regulating social relations, social practice and knowledges; it considers
not only what knowledge consists of but how it evolved, is passed on, how it
constitutes ‘subjects’ and shapes society (Jäger and Maier 2016). Discourse
is arguably part of a subjectification process, particularly within social policy,
and whilst agency provides opportunity to hone one’s individual self-
construction, Foucault (1972) argues the historic, cultural and contingent
(particularly institutionally) nature of discourse controls and limits our
understandings of what is possible. Indeed, it is the task of a discourse
analysis to uncover the ‘whole matrix of relations’ which define and constitute
the disciplinary rules and regularities of a specific time (Kologlugil 2010: 3).
In essence, Foucault (1980) thought of discourse as models of the world;
whilst language is a critical component in constituting us as subjects,

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discursive formations ‘converge with institutions and practices’ (Foucault
1972: 133). It is what happens when ‘language forms are played out in
different social, political and cultural arenas’ (Simpson and Mayr 2010: 5).
More specifically, this study uses van Dijk’s (2003, 2006) epistemic belief that
argues knowledge can only be discovered through a critical approach to
discourse which uncovers the production of inequalities. Such a perspective is
not value-free and adopts an unambiguous socio-political stance that looks to
uncover the construction, reproduction and legitimation of inequality.
Secondly, Bacchi (2009) is important in her theory relating to uncovering
deep-seated problematisations underscoring policy (What’s the problem
represented to be? (WPR)). Her framework holds an ontological position that
policies don’t simply ‘exist’ in the world but are rather constructed
endogenously as conceptions of social problems.
However, limiting an analysis of welfare policy to a CDA may suggest an
epistemology that argues policy is implemented linearly and compliantly
rather than something that effected, negotiated and resisted by various actors
on the ground. Accordingly, the research design includes semi-structured
interviews allowing me to explore how these policy discourses are negotiated,
felt, resisted and constrained, a means of investigating the whats, whys and
hows of ‘policy as discourse’ (Ball et al 2011a).
Why Critical Discourse Analysis?
If one acknowledges the unequal access to discursive resources as argued by
Fairclough (1996) and van Dijk (1993), CDA can be regarded as a ‘highly
context-sensitive, democratic approach which takes an ethical stance on
social issues with the aim of transforming society – an approach or attitude
rather than a step by step method’ (Huckin 1997: 1).
I argue there is a clear rationale to use discursive resources to investigate
how the predominant linguistic processes of government and politics are
utilised to legitimate policy (Fairclough 2000a). Power is intimately

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connected to discourse, whether in control of access, use of context or its
structures of text which can be used to classify, legitimise and exclude
oppressed groups (van Dijk 1993).
By using CDA to explore the contested nature of how terms (for instance
dependency and worklessness) are used and represented, the aim is to
critically appraise some of the post-2010 texts. By shining a light on the
‘overall rhetorical effect’ of the texts (Tonkiss 2004: 373), we can illuminate
continuities and changes in post-2010 social security policy, how power is
exercised and in whose interests.
Whilst CDA defies easy interpretation or application (Huckin 1997), the
process of research will be informed by (but not restricted to) the tenets and
practices of two of its most influential theorists (van Dijk 2003, Fairclough
and Wodak 1997). The CDA will seek to interpret silences, hesitations, doubts,
assertions, body language and other semiotic signs (such as dress). As
Fairclough (1995) argues, the visual often has primacy over words.
A CDA also allows for exploration of how the negotiation of access and settings
are privileged discursive practices and provide scope for power to be
exercised through what van Dijk (1993) terms ‘social cognition’ which he
aligns to mind control (and therefore as abuse of power). Closely aligned is
the use of spin, a means to control the context as well as careful framing and
design of language to maximise the presentation of the message (Fairclough
2000b, Marston 2008). The study aims to extricate the spin from the deep-
seated rationale of the policy (see Hastings 1999).
This CDA adopts a flexible approach; rather than a prescriptive framework, it
utilises a toolkit to analyse, describe and interpret text and associated
discursive practices before seeking an explanation by placing those
interpretations into a meaningful socio-political context. The toolkit is multi-
functional: for instance the use of a micro lexicon-grammatical approach or a
macro approach in decoding the socio-semantic meaning located within texts

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that are ‘sites for the negotiation of power and ideology’ (Fairclough 1989: 10-
11). The CDA allows for an exploration of classificatory discourse (Fairclough
2000a), processes of legitimisation (Reyes 2011) and how discourses combine
and interact to influence public opinion (Lamb 2013). These latter aspects
draw on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985) re-working of Gramscian hegemony in
interpreting social practice as a process of discursive struggle and therefore
necessarily provisional. Data from policy enactment and negotiation therefore
open up the possibility of a fluid and shifting hegemony.
A WPR framework
The utilisation of a WPR framework compliments a CDA approach by
highlighting the value of a sceptical approach by going beyond and disrupting
the ‘face-value’ of policy discourse (Bacchi 2009). The literature review
highlighted how certain ‘problems’ are often assumed to exist rather than
probing the premises (including the genealogies) that underpin those problem
representations (Bacchi 2009) as well as their perceived ‘self-evident’ truth
status. If the premises are unsound, it logically follows that the ‘problem
representations’ are similarly so.
A six-point summary of Bacchi’s WPR approach to policy analysis is set out
below (Figure 1). By working backwards from the texts, the CDA highlights
the ontological and epistemological assumptions as well as the
presuppositions underlying the problematisations. Bacchi (2009: 31) argues
here that we should go beyond a governmentality approach to inquire what
are problematisations beyond ‘
every
policy’.
The WPR approach requires a study of our own as well as policymakers’
positionality as discourse ‘encompasses the assumptions, values,
presuppositions and accompanying signs … called conceptual logics’ (Bacchi
2009: 7). It importantly draws on key aspects of CDA in drawing our attention
to the way genealogies and moreover power relations (for instance, who has
access to discourse) allow for certain problematisations to take hold. Finally,
Bacchi’s (2009) WPR model also critically asks what are the discursive,

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Figure 1: Bacchi’s approach to policy analysis
What's the 'problem' (eg of welfare dependency) represented to be in a specific
policy?
What presuppositions or assumptions underlie this representation of the
'problem'?
How has this representation of the 'problem' come about?
What is left unproblematic in this problem representation? Where are the
silences? Can the 'problem' be thought about differently?
What effects are produced by this representation of the 'problem'?
How/where has this representation of the 'problem' been produced,
disseminated and defended? How could it be questioned, disrupted and
replaced?
subjectification and lived effects produced by certain representations.
More specifically to the subject matter within this thesis, Bacchi (2009)
argues fertile ground may be found in analysing the articulated binaries of
dependence/independence, the keywords utilised by politicians and
policymakers to get problematisations to ‘stick’ as well as the silences within
those representations. For instance, Bacchi (2009) and Pantazis (2016)
suggest an individualising discourse is key to neoliberal social security policy
by positing that pathological personal deficits require addressing through
personal transformation.
Policy enactments: negotiating policy
What is understood as policy should not be exempted from the WPR approach.
As Ball (1994) highlights, the meaning of policy is often assumed and often
employed ambiguously to reflect different things at different times. Whilst
space precludes a fuller discussion, Ball (1994) usefully provides a
distinction: policy as text and policy as discourse. As text is necessarily
contingent on space, time, institutions, actors and interpretation, they are

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always in a flux of compromise. Accordingly, ‘the challenge is to relate
together the ad hocery of the macro with the ad hocery of the micro … to look
for the iterations within the chaos’ (Ball 1994: 15). This highlights the
importance of discourse in
producing
truth and knowledge, ‘about what can be
said, and thought, but also who can speak, when, where and with what
authority’ (Ball 1994: 15). Whilst Bacchi (2009) argues persuasively
discursive practices are not exogenous processes as Ball suggests, the live and
contingent nature of policy at street-level suggests such an approach may be
insufficient. The research should therefore question whether the
poststructural analysis of the WPR framework is overly deterministic in
overlooking policy actors’ agency in detecting underlying problematisations.
Accordingly, semi-structured qualitative interviews with a small sample of
practitioners explore how post-2010 welfare policy is negotiated at a micro
level. Braun et al (2010: 559) highlight how policy enactment can be regarded
as a ‘continuum between compliance and adaptation’ in which the exercise of
agency is dependent on institutional factors (Harker and May 1993), for
example policy overload or institutional processes of ‘crowding out’ whereby
practitioners are focussed on coping and managing due to lack of creative
space (Ball et al 2011b). The implementation of policy may provoke different
responses (Ball et al 2011a); for instance, the exhortative protection of
institutional resource (Alden 2015) or alternatively ‘good enough’
performances (Braun et al 2011: 581) or in extremis, ‘creative non-
implementation’ (Ball 1994: 20). For instance, Ball et al (2011a) highlight in
their research the impact of varying factors. Some schools are considered
‘ciphers of government policy’ whereby local knowledge and priorities are
ignored whilst others creatively ‘recode’ policy according to local contexts.
Braun et al (2010: 557, 558) classify this as ‘tailoring and cropping’, a process
of adapting to the policy ‘audience’.
The interviews therefore focus on two primary aspects. Firstly, using the
exploration of initial findings from the CDA, interviews consider how
practitioners interact with policy, whether simply as problem-solvers (see

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Fairclough 2000a), or for instance as sophisticated policy actors in mediating
policy (Ball et al 2011a). The interviews will explore how practitioners make
sense of their discursive possibilities, in essence the realisation of being both
policy subjects and policy actors simultaneously (Ball et al 2011a).
Secondly, interviews investigate the institutional and personal factors
constraining or enabling agency. The playing out, exercise, enactment,
subversion and resistance of discourses within everyday practices can be
regarded as the ‘tangled plurality’ (Foucault 1972: 49) of policy enactment. It
is in effect a
‘product of compromises […] cannibalised products of multiple (but
circumscribed) influences and agendas. There is ad hocery, negotiation and
serendipidity’ (Ball 1994: 16).
For instance, issues of institutional resource (Lipsky 2010), institutional
culture (Laughlin 1991) and personal capacity in coping day to day (Ball et al
2011a) are areas for potential exploration within the interviews.
Research questions
The research questions the study aims to answer are:
• What are the key continuities and changes in social security policy since
2010?
• In whose needs has welfare reform since 2010 been operationalised?
• How is power exercised and resisted discursively in the relations
between policymakers, ‘street-level’ practitioners and third sector
agencies in the provision of social security?
Sampling and analytical approach

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The choice of texts is necessarily pragmatic and partial due to issues of
resource and the ‘intensive nature of the work’ required (Lamb 2013).
Rather than skimming a large set of texts, a depth of critical analysis is
preferenced.
The texts included are set out in Appendix A. They include a report from the
Centre for Social Justice (2006)
,
chosen due to their position as ideological
forebears of Conservative thinking, together with a Green paper and
landmark government document. There are six speeches (between 2010 –
2016) analysed from key political actors. The use of boundary genres –
specifically press briefings and media interviews – are incorporated so the
critical aspect of media framing is considered. These form a central element
in creating meaning, the ‘conceptual logics’ that form policy (Bacchi 2009: 7).
In contrast, parliamentary discourse is excluded from the sample; debate in
such fora with actors of similar standing are typically not constitutive of
manipulation.
As CDA is not a methodology but rather a state of mind (Wodak and Meyer
2016), no systematic technique is employed for data analysis. What
is
explicit
is the critical stance adopted to identify power operating through discourse
(Wodak and Meyer 2016); the study therefore selects the best available tools
for the job.
For instance linguistic analysis will be combined with investigating the
relationship between texts that cross genres – known as inter-textuality and
inter-discursivity (Fairclough 1992). The CDA will consider genealogies as
part of a discourse-historical approach (Reisigl and Wodak 2016).
Nevertheless, on the continuum of strategies, it relies more heavily on the
broader perspective; namely the socio-cognitive approach (van Dijk 1993)
and the dialectical-relational approach used by Fairclough (1995).
More specifically, data analysis will annotate and categorise texts. Attention
will be drawn to the inclusive and exclusive use of pronouns, the use of tense

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to construct significance, the use of loaded adjectives and the myriad different
techniques which presuppose or imply ‘facts’ (Jorgensen and Phillips 2002,
van Leeuwen 2008, Reyes 2011). The CDA will also look for the ‘justification
of inequality’ via the binaried positive representations of ‘us’ and negative
representations of ‘them’ (van Dijk 1993: 263), the making of categorical
statements with ‘so-called’ irrefutable proof (Fairclough 2000a) and the use of
‘trustworthy’ sources and settings (Reyes 2011). Data analysis is therefore a
flexible process with an emphasis on highlighting problematisations
underpinning ‘policy’.
Interviews with policy actors
Interview participants were selected through a similar purposive sampling
approach with 2 benefit managers in local authorities, a senior employee of a
welfare rights advice unit and a senior union official (who works for the DWP).
My intention was to choose participants who had experience of enacting social
security policy post-2010 from differing perspectives (eg DWP, local
authorities and Third Sector). The recruitment process was straightforward
other than the union official. Introduced through a TUC contact, I anticipated
interviewing her as a DWP employee but agreed nevertheless to proceed when
she explained she would have to be interviewed as a PCS union official. Having
forwarded consent and information forms to her DWP email address, she
expressed considerable disquiet at my ‘naivety’ in sending the forms across,
explaining the DWP robustly screen all email communication. Whilst
apologising for any misunderstanding, it highlighted the intense scrutiny over
how public relations are controlled by the DWP. The interview nevertheless
proceeded well after that, with her even volunteering to recruit others if
needed.
Semi-structured interviews were chosen to reflect the situated nature of
‘knowledge’ in the specific arenas to incorporate the articulation of their own
experience (Blaikie 2010). By going beyond the ‘taken-for-granted’, I aimed to
obtain nuanced explanations that go beyond a standardised set of questions,
which permitted prompts and probes to follow up on unexpected responses

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and to obtain a deeper and richer understanding. Themes covered included
what interviewees believed were the major challenges and changes in policy
directives post-2010, the exercise of conditionality and discretionality, the
development of foodbanks as a form of support, localisation, Universal Credit
and the benefit cap (see Appendix B for sample of interview, Appendix C for
draft interview schedule). The process probed for silences, whilst each
interview schedule iteratively drew on previous interviews. The aim of
achieving a ‘conversation with a purpose’ was not easily achieved, with the
introductory part of the process prior to the interview being particularly
important to place the interviewee at ease.
Interviews were recorded using a digital recorder, transcribed verbatim and
analysed thematically with particular consideration to the CDA and WPR
literature. This permitted a dialectical method of moving between the broader
concepts and theories, the data generated and experience (Coffey and
Atkinson 1996). The adapted ‘constant, comparative method’ proposed by
Thomas (2013: 235) was adopted to ‘label, separate, compile and organise
data’ (Charmaz 1983: 186).
Ethics
Whilst there are no significant ethical issues in analysing the texts, the semi-
structured interviews require thorough preparation. Before interviews, the
nature of the research and extent of participant involvement is explained (see
Appendix D for participation information sheet). Participants are advised that
data is confidential and anonymised, and informed of their rights to withdraw
as well as provided with information on data storage (Arksey and Knight
1999). A consent form (see Appendix E) will be signed prior to
commencement of the interview. In accordance with the University’s ethics
policy (University of Leeds 2015), data will be password-protected and kept
on flexible storage media until uploaded on to the secure University system,
where it will be retained.

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Sensitivity is required during the interview process. Despite their power as
practitioners, different power relations may exist between researcher and
participant (see Holloway 2008). I will use listening and empathetic skills
developed whilst working with Citizens Advice to navigate through such
difficulties.

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Chapter 3: Social security post-2010: austerity a means to an
end?
‘The house of children whose parents are addicted to crack-cocaine. Dad has
passed out on the mattress in his own vomit, mum is crouched over a table,
preparing a fix. What you don’t see is the child hidden in the corner crying.’
(DWP 2012a: 1).
This chapter outlines and uses the data from the sample of policy texts to
identify the predominant strands of continuity and change evident in post-
2010 social security reform by employing Bacchi’s (2009) framework to
identify the characterisation of problems Coalition policy seeks to address. It
further utilises Bacchi (2009) to answer my second research question and
demonstrates how ‘welfare commonsense’ and binaried representations of
deserving and undeserving categories are employed to justify policies that
impact most harshly on the poorest in society.
In tracing the genealogy of post-2010 discourse, the introductory quote above
– taken from Duncan-Smith’s foreword to the DWP (2012a) report
Social
Justice: transforming lives
– represents a re-invoking of depictions that can be
traced back to 1834 Poor Laws ‘less eligibility’ (Pantazis 2016), the
‘scroungerphobia’ moral panic of the 1970s (Golding and Middleton 1982)
and the New Right discourse of Murray and Mead where Mead’s (1992: 212)
‘archetypes of dependency’ point to pejorative portrayals of ‘the jobless youth
… the homeless man … [and] the single mother’.
Breakdown Britain
More specifically, the discourse can clearly be identified in the work of Duncan
Smith’s Centre for Social Justice. In particular, I argue
Breakdown Britain
(CSJ 2006) is a foundational text that sets out the ideology of Coalition and
Conservative social security policy post-2010.

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Whilst the main political actors invoked time and again the financial crisis as
the unavoidable reason for the welfare cuts that followed (see Duncan Smith
2010a, Cameron 2012, Cameron 2015a, Osborne 2012), the ideology within
Breakdown Britain
suggests austerity served as a legitimising tool for the
retrenchment of income protection. The alacrity with which Osborne
abandoned his 2020 budget surplus target after the Brexit referendum
suggests the economic justifications for the magnitude of welfare cuts were
manifestly bogus.
Breakdown Britain’s
five ‘pathways to poverty’ provide an unambiguous
signpost to future Conservative thinking. Despite Cameron’s (2006) overt
acknowledgement of relative poverty,
Breakdown Britain
represents the
precursor to the abandonment of income-based child poverty targets
contained within the current Welfare and Work Bill, to be replaced by
measures of worklessness, educational attainment, debt and addiction
(Roberts and Stewart 2016).
The emphasis on the ‘pathways’ – and their importance as root causes of
poverty – flow consistently throughout the last decade. They appear in early
Coalition speeches (Duncan Smith 2010a), press releases (Cameron 2015b),
invoked by associate director of the CSJ on Radio 4’s Today programme
(Callan 2015) through to the early days of the Conservative government
(Crabb 2016). As well as the discursive impact of a recurrent refrain, it
frames poverty in a specific ‘commonsense’ way, namely that of individual
and moral failing whilst concurrently attributing blame to a ‘welfare system
this Government inherited [that] has acted as a driver for these trends [of
worklessness]’ DWP 2012a: 38). The issue of inherent moral character and
worthiness is one that flows through contemporary discourse but is arguably
flawed through conflating the causes and consequences of poverty.
‘Framing and taming’ through agnotology
The process of ‘framing and taming’ (Gibson 2003) is a useful way to address
Bacchi’s question on alternative explanations and silences within problem

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representations. Alternative structural explanations – for instance the
demand side of employment, the adequacy of income protection, the efficacy
of social security administration – are almost entirely ignored in post-2010
policy. Instead, the deficient parenting practices of poor mothers (Edwards et
al 2016), ‘family life which is chaotic, violent, broken, damaged, turbulent’
(Crabb 2016) and the ‘history of intergenerational worklessness’ (DWP
2012a: 43) are unambiguously framed as problems to be addressed.
The process of taming the problem – the policy solution – is justified through
invoking evidence and latterly in ‘What Works’ centres for social policy (HM
Government 2013) that provide ‘evidence’ to guide policymaking in that field.
Whilst insufficient space prevents a more thorough exploration, I argue the
robustness of evidence provided in policy texts and speeches fails to meet the
rhetoric. In
Breakdown Britain
, the CSJ (2006: 5) state unequivocally in its
short methodology section: ‘the policy making process has involved extensive
academic research’. Despite that, the report contains no bibliography and only
one academic reference. Instead a dual approach of using vivid vignettes
whilst framing the report as truth is employed. For instance, phrases such as
‘this has increasingly been accepted’ (CSJ 2006:1), ‘as this reports shows’
(CSJ 2006: 15), ‘yet it is also known’ (CSJ 2006: 15) are all employed without
supporting evidence. This discursive process of invoking ‘notions of truth’
removes such assertions from contestation (Clarke and Newman 2012: 304)
but also represent examples of agnotology. Slater (2014) specifically
illuminates the dangers of reading CSJ policy documents without considering
what they omit (alternative approaches to poverty), what they divert our gaze
from (structural explanations for poverty) and what they exploit (public
doubt on the causes of poverty).
Other examples of agnotology include acting against the advice of 99% of
respondents in its own consultation in proposing to remove income measures
from the Child Poverty Act (Roberts and Stewart (2016). The iteration of the
‘curse of intergenerational worklessness’ (DWP 2010b) is also called upon
repeatedly; not only headlining the press release prior to Duncan Smith’s set

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piece Welfare to Work speech but in the
Transforming Lives
strategy
document (DWP 2012a) as well as speeches from other DWP ministers (Freud
2011, Grayling 2011). Again, no supporting evidence is offered; despite
concerted efforts, academic research fails to support such claims (see
Macdonald et al 2014, Macmillan 2011). The Social Security Advisory
Committee annual report (2016: 5) reinforces such findings: ‘the absence of
evidence some of the Government’s policy choices has been a significant
concern’.
Where evidence is provided, it is often selectively employed. For instance, a
DWP-commissioned report (Waddell and Burton 2006) referred to in
Transforming Lives
(DWP 2012a), refers to the transformative effects of work
without acknowledging the same report’s findings on the risks of precarity;
the report qualifies its findings by stating positive outcomes are dependent on
‘being employed in a good job’ (Waddell and Burton 2006: 10) and one ‘you
can choose and be happy with’ (Waddell and Burton 2006: 34).
Therefore, what counts as evidence itself is a loaded question (Monaghan
2008). Participant observation conducted by Stevens (2011: 247) confirms a
process in policymaking circles of ‘the silent silencing of inequality’ where
‘acceptable positions … were those which reinforced rather than challenged
the fundamental assumptions and tropes of current policy narratives’.
Continuities from previous administrations
Paid work as the ‘silver bullet’
Whilst a clear strand of continuity can be observed between New Labour,
Coalition and Conservative administrations in the panacean treatment of
work as a solution to poverty and other social ills, I argue the post-2010
administrations are distinctive in applying a harder, more authoritarian edge
to an intensified neoliberal project. Nevertheless, work and its counterpart
worklessness, form important linkages between administrations:

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‘Work is the best route out of poverty for people who are able to work’ (Blair
1998).
‘This Government is unashamedly “pro-work” … we recognise work as the best
route out of poverty’ (DWP 2012a: 36).
‘Work is the best route out of poverty’ (Duncan Smith 2015).
A significant literature (MacLeavy 2011, McKay and Rowlingson 2016)
suggests these quotes reflect significant similarities in approach. However,
that potentially detracts from what underlies differing approaches. In latter
New Labour years, Purnell (2008) vigorously argued for a reworking of the
welfare contract (via harsher sanctions) to address ‘the socially regressive
culture of dependency’. Nevertheless the Coalition’s widening of the
‘conditionality net’ through the ‘levels and levers’ (Clasen and Clegg 2007:
166) through which policy is operationalised (narrowing criteria governing
eligibility and widening the settings of behavioural requirements) reflects a
shift from a paternalist approach under New Labour to more coercive
workfarist contractualism under the Coalition where the State’s responsibility
is diminished or erased (Whitworth and Griggs 2013).
While the
21st Century Welfare
green paper (DWP 2010b) unambiguously
emphasises the efficacy of conditionality, it is the
Transforming Lives
strategy
document that underpins conditionality as a lynchpin of Conservative social
security policy:
!
‘By strengthening the sanctions regime we are ensuring that there are
consequences when people claiming benefits do not fulfil their
responsibilities’ (DWP 2012a: 39) 
!
Although beyond the remit of this thesis to interrogate the efficacy of
conditionality, it is nevertheless instructive to note from aforementioned
studies (Loopstra et al 2015, Dwyer 2016) that anticipated behavioural
effects sought have been small. More recently, the DWP (2015) refused a

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Work and Pensions Committee (2015) recommendation to use the rollout of
Universal Credit to monitor the destinations of sanctioned claimants. Perhaps
this reflects a resolve to ‘control the uncertainty’ as such data may ‘disrupt
the [dominant] narrative’ attached to conditionality (Stevens 2011:243).
Rather than defining conditionality purely as a behavioural tool based on New
Labour’s paternalism, one can interpret conditionality post-2010 as a device
to stigmatise a miscreant ‘underclass’. Using Bacchi’s framework, the
genealogy of New Right theorists such as Mead and Murray provides helpful
insight. The ‘conceptual logic’ (Bacchi 2009: 5) required to underpin such
problem representations (and make them ‘stick’) is illustrated by Mead
(1986: 10): ‘the government must persuade [welfare claimants] to blame
themselves’. The punitive sanctions announced in the white paper
Universal
Credit: welfare that works
(DWP 2010a) can be regarded as a form of
‘hygienic governmentality’, a means to humiliate and dehumanize an ‘abject
population’ (Berlant 1997: 175). The thesis will return to this emerging, but
under-researched, field of governing through stigma (Tyler 2015b).
The residualization and negative selectivism of working-age social security
post-2010 (see Slater 2014, Harkins and Lugo-Ocando 2016) can similarly be
regarded as part of a Malthusian project to invisibilise poverty as an
unavoidable and natural consequence of market forces whilst drawing linkage
with pre-1997 Conservative administrations’ focus on means-testing and
highlighting distinction with the mildly redistributive New Labour era
(McKay and Rowlingson 2016).
The importance of family: muscular interventionism
Continuity is also observed in the emphasis on a ‘moralistic and neoliberal
economic approach’ to family within social security policy (Edwards and
Gillies 2016: 246). Whilst they highlight distinctions in approach – for
instance the social investment model to parenting and early intervention
favoured by New Labour (Lister 2003) – it was New Labour’s preoccupation
with transmitted problems in dysfunctional poor families that again lays the

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foundations for the more coercive, authoritarian approach employed post-
2010 (Edwards and Gillies 2016).
The focus on family breakdown (and particularly dadlessness) in
Breakdown
Britain
(CSJ 2006) as a pathway to poverty sets out the discourse that
follows. The title attributed to the strategy paper ‘
Transforming Lives’
provides an indication of what the problem is represented to be, illustrated by
the pejorative portrayal of chaotic, unstable lives where children are
‘extremely troubled … [with] little structure or stability’ and where trends of
truancy, exclusion and disengagement are explicitly premised as individual
failings beyond the ‘consequence of low income’ (DWP 2012a: 27), and where
solutions include ‘character building activities’ (DWP 2012a: 31).
The moralistic stance taken extends to what constitutes ‘family’. ‘Dadlessness’
is seen as a key thread in
Breakdown Britain
(Slater 2014), further illustrated
in
Transforming Lives
where two parent families are explicitly presented as a
preferred family formation (DWP 2012a). Cameron (2012) similarly frames
lone parents as deficient through the requirement to be ‘work-ready’.
Unencumbered by the Lib Dems after 2015, Conservative discourse on family
takes even greater centre stage. Within six weeks, Cameron (2015a) extols
‘families [as] the best welfare system there is’ whilst Crabb (2016) similarly
heralded ‘it is hard to overstate the importance of family’. Such discourse
rarely moves beyond the simplistic valorisation of ‘family’.
Conversely, the silences within the texts are striking; whilst the economic cost
of family breakdown is invoked (Crabb 2016), the importance of economic
security to families is sidelined in providing stability, highlighted by the
distancing of measuring poverty through income measures (Cameron 2012,
Duncan Smith 2010a). Post-2015, this is illustrated by the increased
importance attributed to the more abstract concept of ‘life chances’ rather
than poverty (Cameron 2015a, Crabb 2016). The origins of such thinking are
often found within
Breakdown Britain.
It bizarrely recommends people on low
incomes should lead lives based on ‘deferred gratification rather than instant

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returns’ (CSJ 2006: 38) whilst ignoring the profound influence of resource
distribution (Kisby 2010).
The use of selectivism to explicitly target services at specific social groups is
promoted as a means to generate social mobility (Cameron 2015a),
particularly apparent in the fields of early intervention and troubled families.
Whilst the Troubled Families Programme has its antecedent in New Labour’s
family intervention policies (Edwards and Gillies 2016), the
Transforming
Lives
document justifies its importance in announcing:
‘hundreds of thousands of individuals and families [are] living profoundly
troubled lives … so chaotic [they] cost the Government some £9 billion in the
last year alone’ (DWP 2012a: 1)
The discursive switch from troubled families suffering disadvantage to
troublesome families (see Levitas 2012b) betrays the importance attached to
the perceived social pathologies of these families (Bond-Taylor 2015).
Crossley (2016) argues persuasively the re-emergence of family reflects a
coercive interventionism that again is silent on the structural issues that
impede families.
Despite such critiques, Cameron (2015a) heralded the Troubled Families
initiative as a totem of Conservative success in that ‘almost all of the 117,000
families which the programme started working with have now been turned
around’. More recently, a leaked evaluation suggests such a proclamation
reflects further agnotology; the programme was found to have ‘no discernible
impact’ on adult outcomes (O’Carroll 2016).
Early intervention, troubled families and the Work programme are all
arguably exemplars of the explicit targeting of specific social groups due to a
requirement to cure their moral deficiencies whilst simultaneously making
cuts to social security.

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Changes from New Labour: different policy goals?
Whilst the continuities analysed above also reflect some change between
administrations, I argue these primarily reflect Hall’s (1993) first-order
change (the intensity of policy settings) although the distinctive approach
poverty can be conceptualised as a third-order change in the administration’s
policy goals. The retrenchment of social security provision is further
illustrated in the following chapter in how discourse is employed to provide
stigmatizing classifications between social groups (Tyler 2015a). Whilst such
sociological distinctions between the ‘deserving poor’ and others are not new
(see Lawler 2005, Tyler 2008, 2013), I argue that post-2010, they have been
utilized specifically to provide a justification for a dismantling of the welfare
state whereby
all
working-age benefit recipients are cast as non-deserving
(although to differing degrees).
The benefit cap: a fair policy?
With that in mind, Hall’s second order of change (policy mechanisms) are the
instruments through which such divisions are operationalised:
‘After the £26,000 benefit cap is introduced,
they’ll
still take home more than
their
neighbours who go out to work every day. Can
we
really say that’s fair?’
(Cameron 2012)
The benefit cap is perhaps the Coalition’s most popular policy with more than
73% of respondents in favour (DWP 2013). However, even three years after
its introduction, research is sparse. Whilst questions on its efficacy in
generating behavioural change therefore remain largely unanswered, the
introduction of a mechanism that moves policy goals away from human need
(Dean 2010) to one premised on an arbitrary definition of ‘fairness’ has clear
ramifications. Whilst the initial cap was aligned to the average household’s
net weekly wage, a reduced household cap – set at an arbitrary £20000
(£23000 in London) - will be introduced later this year to ‘promote even
greater fairness’ (DWP 2015: 1).

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The benefit cap is also perhaps the best example of ‘anti-welfare
commonsense’ (Jensen 2014); by pitching the taxpayer against the benefit
recipient repeatedly (DWP 2012b, 2013, 2014, 2015), it makes it difficult to
think differently about the issue. The discursive effects of closing off
alternative representations may be significant; for instance, the psycho-social
impacts on children and families being displaced. The introduction of a two
child ‘limit’ in the forthcoming Welfare Reform and Work Bill also signifies
how policy is operationalised to the detriment of poorer families, who may not
be able to afford larger families when compared to their richer counterparts.
Whilst not explicit, the underlying representation of large families as the
problem arguably reflects a eugenicist shift in policymaking, albeit by stealth.
Perhaps more importantly, it represents a legitimating mechanism to
generate consent for unprecedented retrenchment in social security provision
(Jensen and Tyler 2015).
Localisation: shifting the blame?
As already highlighted, the localisation of council tax support arguably
undermines the simplification objectives of Universal Credit (Royston 2012).
Localisation strangely receives no mention other than two paragraphs in the
21st Century Welfare
green paper where it is argued ‘devolved welfare
systems … can stimulate innovation and ensure that systems are more aligned
to local circumstances’ (DWP 2010b: 31).
Whilst the much publicised devolution agenda adds credence to such an
explanation, the lived effects of localisation have been severe with 2.2 million
low-income families adversely affected by an average of £169 per annum
(Born 2016). Similarly, the diminution of funding for local welfare assistance
support (the successor to the social fund) means significant variation in
provision between local authorities, with some providing no emergency
support (Childrens Society 2015).

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The recent announcement to localise Attendance Allowance from 2018 (DCLG
2016) suggests an underlying policy shift; not only in further residualising
social security but potentially as a precursor to the introduction of regional
benefits linked to local wage levels (Wootton 2012). Whilst those proposals
were cut from Cameron’s 2012 Bluewater speech, their inclusion in the pre-
speech briefing (see Wooton 2012) suggests Conservative thinking is
attracted to its further implementation.
Further time-limiting benefit entitlement – implemented with contributory-
based Employment and Support Allowance – is an additional mechanism
highlighted by Cameron (2012). It has received little subsequent attention.
In evaluating the significance of change, no one policy represents the third
order change of new policy goals (Hall 1993). Indeed, this chapter highlights
much continuity in New Labour’s neoliberal project. The discernible
intensification of policy settings with the incorporation of new policy
mechanisms – and the cumulative effect of unprecedented changes – arguably
does represent a deliberate shift in policy goals. Whilst latterly the pace of
change has slowed, recent thwarted attempts to cut tax credits and Personal
Independence Payment (PIP) (Eaton 2015, Hughes 2016) illustrate an
undiminished desire to dismantle working age social security provision.
Indeed, despite the reversal of tax credits cuts, Universal Credit has arguably
been ‘eviscerated’ (Garnham 2016).
This thesis focusses primarily on social security for working age people. It is
striking however how pensioners have been protected, whether due to
political expediency or their ‘deservingness’ (McKay and Rowlingson 2016).
Nevertheless, I suggest it would be wrong to suggest welfare reform has been
operationalised in the interests of pensioners. Rather I argue the needs of
capital, and particularly the private labour market, are preferenced above the
human needs of those experiencing poverty.

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The following chapter considers more specifically the discursive techniques
employed by the Coalition and Conservative administrations to achieve their
policy goals.

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Chapter 4: Discursive tools and techniques
Strivers and skivers?
‘We’re not going to get through this as a country if we set one group against
another, if we divide, denounce and demonise’ (Osborne 2012, min 04:14)
‘Where is the fairness,
we
ask, for the shift worker, leaving home in the dark
hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of
their
next door
neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits’ (Osborne 2012, min 07:41)
Apart from the chutzpah of dividing, denouncing and demonising within
moments of warning the country not to do so, these two quotes - taken from
the same Conservative Party conference speech - highlight not only a
justification of inequality (and specifically the benefit cap) but the power of
discourse to influence the media. The use of emotive language sharply divides
hard work (the darkness of the early morning) against laziness and deficiency
(closed blinds, sleeping). This use of binaried contrasts (usually between the
‘taxpayer’ and ‘welfare claimant’) is employed regularly both in policy texts
(DWP 2010b, 2012a) and speeches (Duncan Smith 2010a, 2010b, 2015) and
is used as a legitimizing tool to take hold within the public imagination to
divide the deserving ‘striver’ from the undeserving ‘skiver’. When justifying
sanctions, Duncan Smith (2010a) therefore announces ‘to be fair to the
taxpayer,
we
will cut payments if
they
don’t do the right thing’. Binaries
further fail to reflect the complexity of such discrete categorisations. For
instance the ‘taxpayer’ often claims top-up tax credits and benefits due to low
wages, whilst the ‘welfare claimants’ pays indirect taxes.
As illustrated in these quotes, the use of inclusive and exclusive pronouns
(we, they) allows for further legitimation of inequitable policies (Jorgensen
and Phillips 2002, van Dijk 1993). Pronouns are pivotal – and indeed political
– in unmasking power relations and allowing an ‘othering’ process to take
hold. This process of legitimation is crucial; as Cap (2008:39) argues it is the
‘principal discourse goal sought by political actors’.

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Ruth Patrick’s (2014, 2016) work with ‘Dole Animators’ suggests a mismatch
between Osborne’s (2010) portrayal of living off benefits as a ‘lifestyle choice’
and the hard work of surviving on a low income. The complexity of lived
experience and the prevalence of in-work poverty are factors unlikely to
appeal to a 24-hour media attracted to soundbites, to which Osborne’s
anecdote is well suited.
Cameron’s Bluewater welfare speech
Cameron’s set-piece welfare speech at the Bluewater Shopping Centre uses a
critical stance to illustrate how context, access, presentation, inter-
discursivity and language are employed to justify the production of
inequalities (van Dijk 2003).
When Cameron is introduced by the local Conservative MP, Bluewater is
described ‘as more than just a shopping centre … a leisure complex with retail
at its heart that employs 7500 people’ (Johnson 2012). The site therefore
reflects and is consistent with Cameron’s values of hard-working people and
market-driven consumerism. As a space necessitating spending power, it
welcomes the aspirational spender whilst excluding those on low incomes or
social security from participating.
Cameron’s attire for the day, a dark suit, white shirt, blue tie complimented by
a plain dark blue background is used to indicate a sober approach reflecting
the seriousness of the ‘crisis in welfare’.
Today, almost one pound in three spent by the Government goes on welfare. In
a world of fierce competitiveness – a world where no-one is owed a living –
we
need to have a welfare system that the country can properly afford. The
system
we
inherited was unaffordable. It also trapped people in poverty and
encouraged irresponsibility (Cameron 2012).

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The start of Cameron’s speech provides a useful indicator of how he frames
social security. The cost is argued as paramount and mentioned in the first,
second and third sentences but provides no context on the proportion spent
on pensions (42%), unemployment benefits (1%) and housing benefits (10%)
or that due primarily to demographic factors, spending on pensions was
projected to increase significantly (it rose by 25% in the last five years) (ONS
2016). Instead, Cameron’s speech almost entirely focuses on the spending
that goes to working-age unemployed people with small sections on ‘elderly’
and disabled people.
The use of the inclusive pronoun again portrays his audience as allies (van
Dijk 2016), whilst the use of the present tense underscores his statements as
reality and undisputable (Reyes 2011). The use of ‘no one’ as an all-
encompassing but exclusionary expression closes off alternative ways of
thinking about globalisation reinforced by Cameron’s inscribed evaluation
through the dramatic adjective ‘fierce’. The techniques are central to his
construction that a new era of globalisation precludes the status quo. These
categorical statements should be interpreted as the presumptions and
assumptions that underlie the representation of the problem as an
unaffordable system trapping people in dependency together with his moral
responsibilising discourse.
Moving beyond his introductory quote, Cameron’s speech is an exemplar of
intertextuality. Despite Cameron’s speech being presented as ‘kite-flying’ – an
opportunity to open up discussions – he frames the ‘problem’ in specific and
arguably problematic ways (for instance a culture of welfare dependency,
worklessness, an ‘out-of-control system’). Accordingly, potential solutions flow
from that framing (for instance workfare, time-limiting and capping benefits,
removing eligibility for young people) leaving alternative explanations closed
off. The press briefing, introduction to his speech by the local MP and an
appearance that morning on radio by Iain Duncan Smith all reflect a process
of carefully framing the overriding ideology prior to the speech itself (Prime
Minister’s Office 2012, Johnson 2012, Duncan Smith 2012). Indeed, Duncan

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Smith (2012) specifically argues the speech relates to a ‘culture’ of
entitlement or ‘something for nothing’. Following the speech, a process of
‘recontextualisation’ (Reisigl and Wodak 2016: 28) takes place whereby the
Daily Mail reinterpret Cameron’s responsibilising agenda as freeing the
individual from the state (Pandya 2012) whilst the i refers to the
aforementioned story of regional benefit levels that was cut from the speech
(Paperboy 2016).
Interdiscursivity, evidence and key words
This process of recontextualisation is linked to interdiscursivity whereby
different discourses and genres link to each other in different ways. In effect,
interdiscursivity signifies the fluidity and contingent nature of discourse.
Whilst the intertextuality of the texts studied shows a high degree of
repetition (for instance, how the benefit cap is underscored by fairness or
work as the route out of poverty), the evolvement of discourse is also
observed, due to the interaction in different fields of political action such as
public attitudes, lawmaking and other topics (Reisigl and Wodak 2016). For
instance, the lower importance attributed to poverty post-2010 is reflected
not only in the removal of income-based child poverty targets but also where
poverty is increasingly phased out in discourse and replaced with life chances,
observed in speeches (Cameron 2015a, Crabb 2016) but also in the renaming
of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission as the Social Mobility
Commission (2016), a graduated invisibilising process which Lister
poignantly summarises as: ‘It is as though children – and children in poverty –
are just disappearing’ (Hansard 2016).
In pursuing an explicitly socio-political stance to uncover ‘the discursive
(re)production of power abuse’ (van Dijk 2016: 63), the use of evidence
should be noted. Whilst I have already commented on the agnotological
approach of the post-2010 administrations through its selective use of ‘policy-
based evidence’ (Edwards et al 2016: 8), the position of politicians as
authoritative sources brings additional legitimacy to their speech (Rojo and

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van Dijk 1997). Accordingly, the texts contain examples of categorical
statements with implied irrefutable proof (Fairclough 2000a).
‘these reforms … build on a
wealth
of evidence that highlights the role of a
strong system of conditionality’ (DWP 2010b)
‘what, perhaps, is most remarkable is the
degree
of consensus among
academics … that we need a new approach to tackling persistent poverty’
(Duncan Smith 2010a)
On neither occasion is any evidence submitted, and as previously illustrated,
both statements can be considered contentious. Similar observations can be
made with the Troubled Families Programme (Cameron 2015a) and Universal
Credit (Crabb 2016). Furthermore, when statistics are employed to support
policy, the UK Statistics Authority has had cause to rebuke the DWP on
several occasions (Ball 2013, Bienkov 2014, Bennett 2014). Perhaps for these
reasons, Duncan Smith (2010b) and Crabb (2016) use the discursive
technique of aligning themselves with trustworthy sources (Reyes 2011), in
their cases by invoking Beveridge’s work.
Finally, I refer to Appendix F which provides the frequency of key words for in
each speech of the sample. The analysis is limited and does not extend to data
produced by more sophisticated concordance software. Frequencies are
absolute, take no account of differing length of speeches or that the sample is
purposive. Nevertheless, they provide an indication of the direction of travel
post-2010. Whilst words such as work, welfare and system remain
consistently employed throughout the six years, it is noticeable how ‘family’
and ‘life chances’ emerge post-2015 election, perhaps reflecting a more
moralistic stance now the Conservatives have thrown off the shackles of the
Lib Dems. Poverty in contrast, in line with comments above, is gradually
eroded from discourse. I also highlight that social security is not used once in
any speech, or indeed report.
The following chapter seeks to broaden the discussion to incorporate findings

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from interviews with policymakers and practitioners. To date, primary foci
has been on the primacy of work and family whilst drawing attention to
individual lack in justifying the retrenchment of social security.

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Chapter 5: Space between the rules?
The level of changes we experienced in the early days, 2010, 2012, 2013, were
unbelievable and they were unprecedented. And also it was also a huge policy shift.
I would describe it as trying to turn us from being helpful to unhelpful. And that
was a huge turnaround. (Janet, PCS representative, worker at DWP for 24 years)
The ‘system’
!
Throughout the texts, as well as a focus on individual failing, one observes a
dualistic blame attributed to the ‘system’. Whilst never overtly defined, it is
perhaps best considered as a proxy of the state. Whether referring to the
inaugural chapter in
21st Century Welfare
(DWP 2010b) ‘
Problems with the
current system
’, the references to ‘wasteful bureaucratic delays’ (DWP 2010b:
4) or the ‘huge income transfer industry’ (Cameron 2012), the size of the
state is represented as an overriding problem. As Janet outlines above, the
plethora of cuts to working-age benefits reflects a significant downsizing of the
‘state’. The transition to Universal Credit has been presented as a process of
simplification to eradicate the inherited system’s complexity and perverse
work incentives (DWP 2012a). Ideologically, one may have expected a
Conservative-led administration to combine less generous provision with less
intervention and regulation to empower the ‘Welfare Society’ (CSJ 2006: 14),
a society where family and civil society are primary providers instead of an
‘out of control welfare system’ (Cameron 2012).
The interviews however paint a mixed picture. At one level, the emergence of
a Welfare Society through the expansion of emergency food provision was
observed by all interviewees:
When I started in welfare rights, there was no concept of a food bank. It’s only in
recent years that it’s taken off and it’s become now fairly, almost like part of the
statutory system the way they operate (Sean, senior welfare rights worker).

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Discretionality
!
The extensive use of discretionality – arguably a substitute for rights-based
social security – may also be reflective of a less regulated process of policy-
making (see DWP 2010b). Whilst both local authority interviewees spoke of
the widespread application of discretionary housing payments to cover
shortfalls due to the bedroom tax, inadequacy of LHA rates and the benefit
cap, recent analysis suggests sizeable variations on their use to mitigate
losses (socialrights.co.uk 2016) with one local authority using only 16% of its
funding, whilst another spent 250% of its allotted funding, the maximum
permitted.
The use of discretion to cover financial hardship due to aforementioned
reforms should be distinguished from the use of discretion to determine
eligibility, for instance the growing use of medical assessments in assessing
claims for disability benefits. The prevailing ‘scrounger’-type discourse is
prevalent in classifying between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ disabled
claimants:
it’s not right that someone can get more than £130-a-week DLA simply by filling
out a bit of paper … [so] we’re introducing proper, objective assessments, so that
money goes to people who truly need it, with more for the severely disabled
(Cameron 2012).
the sickness benefit culture in this country … is in dire need of reform (Duncan
Smith 2015).
Such work capability assessments have been critiqued as unfit for purpose,
reinforced by the high percentages of successful appeals (see Citizens Advice
2010a, 2010b, 2012, Warren et al 2014) suggesting that the exercise of
discretion is heavily influenced by prevailing discourse. Interviews revealed
that when discretion is applied, it is predominantly done so within the
dominant but narrow discursive boundaries operating within the DWP.
Garthwaite’s (2014) research that stigma leads some disabled claimants not
accessing the support they require therefore reinforces the requirement for

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further research on governing through stigma (Tyler 2015b).
Janet (PCS representative) illustrates these points:
… you feel like you are going out on a limb sometimes. And obviously the mood
music that might tell you where your discretion should lie can be sometimes
distracting you from making the right decision … [union members] feel it is safer to
go along the path that’s being suggested… so there’s a lot of pressure not to exercise
their discretion.
one of the main policy intents has been to put people off claiming benefit. That’s
clear, that’s stated what the intention is … the way they were going to put people off
claiming [PIP] was to make sure everyone was seen, so that you would be fearful
because you would be examined.
Such an environment highlights the limits to interpret ‘policy as text’ (Ball
1993); the space for interpretation and contestation is constrained by the
power of institutional discourse. Janet’s observations further illustrate a
keen and critical awareness of the ‘forms of truth’ imposed by ‘policy as
discourse’ (Ball 1993), and how they shape ‘who we have (been encouraged
to) become’ (Bacchi 2009: 215).
Discretionality should therefore be considered a diversionary measure away
from the underlying problem; it temporarily ameliorates the effects of the
harshest cuts whilst forming an exemption mechanism from judicial cases of
unlawful discrimination (Meers 2015).
Institutional power
!
So rather than a less regulated ‘system’, one detects the dark spectre of the
‘system’ looming over local policymakers and claimants alike. The frustration
is encapsulated by Clem, Section Manager for a large Northern metropolitan
local authority:
DWP watch us all the time, do you want us to come and tell you about your
performance and stuff, do you need any help. Well hold on, you need some help
don’t you cos it takes 3 months for UC to be assessed, so look at your own first.

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By combining the DWP (2010b, 2012a) texts with the interviewee narratives,
we observe ‘the organisational forms and social practices through which
governing is accomplished’ (Colebatch 2006: 9); not only in the DWP’s
discursive power but its power as an institutional force. This is exemplified by
the discussion within the methodology chapter where Janet (PCS Union
representative) described her unease and anxiety at the systematic screening
of her DWP email address.
Duncan Smith’s (2014) assertion of a ‘dysfunctional welfare system …
[making] life difficult for people at every turn’ is therefore arguably true,
ironically in large part to the reforms he oversaw.
Discursive, subjectification and lived effects
!
Bacchi’s (2009) WPR framework asks us to consider what effects are
produced by the representation of the ‘problem’. The interviews suggest the
effects of Duncan Smith’s fast-paced reforms have considerably exacerbated
poverty and division. In particular, the findings reflect deep concerns over the
use of sanctions, the implementation of Universal Credit, the long-argued
rationale of work as a route out of poverty and the motivation behind
localisation.
Bacchi (2009) breaks down the effects into discursive (what can be thought
about and said), subjectification (how subjects and subjectivities are
constituted in discourse) and lived effects (the material effects on people’s
lives).
The use of sanctions
!
Whilst I have previously outlined disputed evidence on the efficacy of
sanctions, interviews highlighted both subjectification and lived effects
through their operationalisation.
Clem stressed the sheer volume of sanctioned claimants whilst Janet
highlighted how her members felt demoralised when the more intensive
sanctions regime was introduced in 2012 as they left ‘vulnerable’ and

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‘desperate’ people with very limited options. The concern at the lived effects
was commented on by all interviewees in how they now regarded emergency
food as an institutionalised part of meeting need.
The subjectification effects of the intensified regime are similarly evident. Not
only does Janet point to the demoralising effect on practitioners who sanction
people but she provides an important perspective on the messiness of
rationalities initiated from ‘below’:
the sanctions regime [is] … making it really difficult to claim JSA cos you’ve got to
apply for all these jobs and so on. I think that has put a lot of people off claiming
JSA so in effect they don’t need to sanction as many people cos there’s not that
many people claiming it.
This reflects not only how sanctioned people disappear to unknown
destinations (Loopstra et al 2015) but also the reluctance for people to claim
benefits they need (Garthwaite 2014), a point supported by the DWP’s (2016)
own research which states only 50% of those eligible to claim JSA do so.
Whilst this thesis does not seek to research the lived effects on claimants, I
argue pushing people to the margins of society is both harmful to those
individuals but to society itself due to the multiple knock-on consequences, a
point supported by Fletcher et al’s (2016) research.
The implementation of Universal Credit
!
Despite the manifest and multiple problems with the implementation of
Universal Credit, there is a distinct gap between government rhetoric and that
of policymakers. Duncan Smith (2015) and Crabb (2016) both place a
positive gloss on its initial implementation in stark contrast to interview
participants. All interviewees worked in areas where Universal Credit had
only been rolled out in the simplest cases but despite that, reported significant
confusion and hardship caused due to its maladministration. When asked for
the main challenges in the provision of social security, Alice (Benefits
Operational Manager for a Northern rural unitary authority) answered
‘Universal Credit … scrapping it all together … or at least take the housing

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element out definitely … don’t think it sits well at all’.
Other concerns related to the length of time to process a new claim, as well as
the new 4 weekly payment cycle:
Average is 3 month … we are paying them on a notional income cos otherwise we’re
leaving people destitute, rent arrears and council tax arrears (Clem, Section
Manager).
the big pressure point will come around that 4 weeks [payment cycle]. It’s the most
unpopular element of it, undoubtedly (Janet, PCS representative).
Whilst interviewees looked to mitigate the worst of the lived effects, this was
generally achieved through the increased use of emergency food provision as
a sticking plaster. Ryan (2016) underscores the point in highlighting the very
real hardship endured by Imogen Groome who feels she was ‘left to starve by
the DWP’. If we add the risks of ‘digital-induced destitution’ through UC’s
‘digital by default’ design (Hodkinson 2014), the introduction of in-work
conditionality (Millar and Bennett 2016) plus its retrenchment (Asthana
2016), Universal Credits’ role as a transformational route to work (see Crabb
2016) is severely diminished. The lived effects of destitution and hardship are
compounded by the subjectification effects of stigma and shame in being
forced to use emergency food (see Garthwaite 2016). The design faults
inherent within Universal Credit should not be regarded as merely technical;
they form part of a pattern whereby access to social security is made
increasingly demanding.
Work for all?
!
Despite that, Universal Credit is posited unambiguously as ‘encouraging’
people into work (Crabb 2016), albeit a supply side initiative focussing on the
individual’s responsibility to look harder and longer. It is worth troubling this
‘work first’ approach further with the assistance of Janet:
there is one piece of policy … an absolute insistence that [DWP] staff have to accept
… that work is the way out of poverty … and in fact right now, we [PCS Union] are

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in a dispute because they are wanting to put that people people’s annual appraisal
form, they have to be passionate about explaining to customers that work is the
route of poverty and obviously for some customers, work is not the route of poverty
and it never will be (Janet, PCS representative).
Further interviewee comments repeatedly highlighted concerns over the type
of work which led people to claim top-up benefits, whether zero hour
contracts, low paid ‘minimum wage’ work or the dramatic increase in low-paid
self-employment. The discursive effects of conceptualising work as a catch-all
panacea are also observed in how other types of work (domestic, caring,
volunteering, independent living) are not only delegitimised but closed off
from everyday discussion. The Income Support requirement introduced in
2011 for lone parents (who are mainly women) to seek work when their
youngest child reaches three (reduced from 16 in 2008) not only precludes
choice in raising children but reflects a paternalistic approach that!implicitly
rejects the possibility of lone parents reaching morally appropriate decisions.
Instead, the state absents itself from what it regards as the private and
individual decision to reconcile work and family (Sumer et al 2008).
Accordingly, the discursive effects of a ‘work for all’ policy simultaneously
quieten the requirement for family friendly policies in the workplace that
include available and affordable childcare.
Beyond this valorisation of paid work, the further goal appears to extend the
label of ‘dependency’ (see Bennett 2012) to low-paid workers claiming
benefits. The state blames them for their own poverty rather than casting a
spotlight on employers who provide inadequate and insecure pay and
conditions. This shift reflects a further veneration of the ‘Welfare Society’
where welfare is provided by family and civic society, and where people must
be independent of the state (Millar and Bennett 2016).
Before embarking on the interviews with policy actors, I anticipated finding
processes of adaptation, compromise and even undermining of policy. Whilst
there was some evidence of this, the capacity to rework or negotiate policy
was limited. As Alice said, ‘if it’s set in the regulation, you can’t use your

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discretion on anything’. Compounding this constraint is the discursive power
of an institution that practitioners seemed afraid of. Perhaps most relevant
though is the pace and cumulative nature of unprecedented change, as
outlined by Janet at the beginning of this chapter. Alice reflects on how that
multiple and cumulative change impacts on claimants:
‘I think it’s an accumulation of everything … one thing after another, and that
changes, and that changes, you know, customers don’t know whether they ae
coming or going.’
I argue the data acquired ‘on the ground’ points to a deliberate process
whereby the post-2010 administrations drew on the ‘alchemy of austerity’
(Clarke and Newman 2012) and an exploitative and divisive discourse to
justify a process of unprecedented change which practitioners and claimants
have largely been unable to resist.

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Conclusion
‘For too long, we have discouraged people from taking up their
responsibilities as the Welfare State has pushed in to fill the gap where
family and society used to function more effectively’ (Duncan Smith
2010a)
This thesis has investigated the continuities and changes of social security
policy post-2010 whilst placing an emphasis on how power has been
exercised, and in whose interests. The issue of income protection is of critical
importance in addressing the scourge of poverty and social inequality. Despite
this, insufficient attention has been paid to the taken for granted premises
that underpin the problematisations of social security policy. By employing a
Critical Discourse Analysis underpinned by Bacchi’s WPR framework, it has
been possible to probe below the surface.
The findings of the project reveal that whilst there has been continuity from
the New Labour era, the goals of social security post-2010 are distinctive. The
unprecedented extent – and volume - of change represents a
reconceptualization of the link between social rights and basic needs. The
level of retrenchment of income protection for working-age people highlights a
desire for a Welfare Society where welfare is run by family and charity. As
well as reflecting an intensifying neoliberal approach, post-2010 reform
reflects a neoconservative strand where intervention by a bossy state is
justified to accentuate existing generational, gendered, classed and ableist
inequalities. The focus on family and charity arguably reflects a move from a
liberal welfare regime to a Southern Mediterranean one where familialism and
a particularist clientelism take precedence, in which some social groups
receive generous benefits whilst others experience severe hardship (Ferrera
1996).
The key findings reflect these forms of intervention. Firstly, the extensive use
of conditionality is observed in reports and texts but is most keenly

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corroborated by the accounts of practitioners. Whilst premised as the
necessary ‘stick’ to get people ‘dependent’ on the ‘system’ into paid work, the
lack of supportive evidence, the failure to collect data and moreover the
harmful impact on people’s lives, reflects an agnotological approach that
exposes a belief in individual rather than structural failings as the reason for
people’s poverty.
Secondly, the discursive interventions employed post-2010 – and the
interviews with policy actors – indicate a shift towards a more observable
mode of governing through stigma and maladministration. Examples include
the switch from being helpful to unhelpful, dissuading people from claiming
benefits they need and diverting people to emergency forms of charitable
assistance. These are aligned with dividing practices that frame those who are
‘deserving’ against those who are ‘undeserving’, with retrenchment
accompanied by forms of legitimation to justify further inequalities, with
austerity most prevalent. Subjectification effects are not felt just by claimants
but also by street-level practitioners who feel obligated to take more coercive
standpoints.
Finally, I argue the wholesale retrenchment of working age social security is
the most important finding. It reflects an increased selectivism previously
observed in the Thatcher/Major era but also reveals a reconceptualization of
the Welfare State as a leaky and unsatisfactory safety net in which many fall
through to an even more inadequate secondary safety net of emergency
charitable assistance, or worse still, no provision at all.
Caution should be exercised in generalising these findings. The sample of
reports, speeches and interviews was necessarily restricted due to resource.
The methodological approach unapologetically focusses on adopting a
deliberate socio-political approach to uncover inequalities which nevertheless
some scholars may find problematic. The data and findings may have been
enhanced if the research had incorporated the lived experience of those
targeted by reforms.

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Further research into the process of governing through stigma – and arguably
maladministration – would certainly provide further depth to my tentative
conclusions. In answering my second research question, additional research
on who are the specific beneficiaries and losers of welfare reform would
similarly provide additional substance to my findings.
Nevertheless, my research suggests policy has favoured those of pension age
with the youngest most vigorously targeted; women and disabled people are
further groups bearing the brunt of social security cuts. Lone parents
(predominantly women) are specifically picked out. The implementation and
lowering of the benefit cap, and the forthcoming two child rule, highlights
poorer larger families as problematic, potentially reflecting the re-emergence
of eugenicist thinking but certainly reflecting an ideology that people should
live independently from the state. Further moves to retrench provision seems
likely whether achieved through more localisation, regionalising benefit
payments, additional ‘time-limiting’ of benefits or even paying benefits
through vouchers.
My research deliberately aimed to look below the surface. I have concluded
that since 2010, there was a paradigm shift in the approach to social security.
The unremitting discursive attack by a cruel state on its poorest and most
vulnerable people is unparalleled since 1945 and paints a hugely bleak picture
for the future of a civilised, caring society.

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London: The Stationery Office.
Warren, J., Garthwaite, K. and Bambra, C. (2014). 'After Atos Healthcare: is
the Employment and Support Allowance fit for purpose and does the
Work Capability Assessment have a future?'.
Disability & Society.
29
(8) 1319-1323.
Watts, B., Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G. and Watkins, D. (2014). 'Welfare
Sanctions and Conditionality in the UK'.
Research Round-up.
Whitworth, A. and Griggs, J. (2013). 'Lone parents and welfare-to-work
conditionality: necessary, just, effective?'.
Ethics and Social Welfare.
7
(2) 124-140.
Wiggan, J. (2012). 'Telling stories of 21st century welfare: The UK Coalition
government and the neo-liberal discourse of worklessness and
dependency'.
Critical Social Policy.
32 (3) 383-405.
Williams, F. (2004). 'What matters is who works: why every child matters to
New Labour. Commentary on the DfES Green Paper Every Child
Matters'.
Critical Social Policy.
24 (3) 406-427.
Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. eds. (2016).
Methods of Critical Discourse Studies.
3rd ed. London: Sage.
Wootton, K. (2012).
PM considers lower benefits for the North.
[Online].
[Accessed 15 May 2016]. Available from World Wide Web:
<http://archive.oneandother.com/articles/pm-considers-lower-benefits-
for-the-north/>.

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Work and Pensions Committee. (2015).
Work and Pensions - Fifth Report :
Benefit sanctions policy beyond the Oakley Review.
[Online]. [Accessed
25 November 2015]. Available from World Wide Web:
<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmwo
rpen/814/81402.htm>.
Wright, S. (2012). 'Welfare-to-work, agency and personal responsibility'.
Journal of Social Policy.
41 (02) 309-328.
Wright, S. (2016). 'Conceptualising the active welfare subject: welfare reform
in discourse, policy and lived experience'.
Policy & Politics.
44 (2) 235-
252.
Wu, C.-F., Cancian, M. and Wallace, G. (2014). 'The effect of welfare sanctions
on TANF exits and employment'.
Children and Youth Services Review.
36 1-14.

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Appendix A: Sample of texts analysed
Date
Type
Name / organisation
Title
December
2006
Report
Social Justice Policy
Group, Centre for
Social Justice
Breakdown Britain:
interim report on
the state of the
nation
27 May
2010
Speech
Iain Duncan Smith,
Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions
Welfare for the 21st
century
July 2010
Green Paper,
Cm 7913
Department of Work
and Pensions
21st Century Welfare
March 2012
Command
Paper Cm
8314
Department of Work
and Pensions
Social Justice:
Transforming Lives
25 June
2012
Speech
David Cameron, Prime
Minister
Prime Minister’s
Speech on welfare
8 October
2012
Speech
George Osborne,
Chancellor of the
Exchequer
George Osborne’s
speech to the
Conservative
Conference
22 June
2015
Speech
David Cameron, Prime
Minister
Prime Minister’s
speech on
opportunity
24 August
2015
Speech
Iain Duncan Smith,
Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions
Work, health and
disability
12 April
2016
Speech
Stephen Crabb,
Secretary of State for
Work and Pensions
Transforming lives
through welfare and
work

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Appendix B: sample of interview
!
Interview with benefits operational manager (L) and principal development
officer (A), Strategic Operations Team of large rural unitary authority
R Ok we’re up and running. Erm, so if I can maybe just start away by just asking
if you could tell me what your positions are here and how long you’ve worked
and what you brief resume of your responsibilities are to start with if that’s ok.
L So Im Lisa … and I’m the benefits operational manager for East Riding. I’ve
worked in local government for 25 years… (laughter) … yea its awful isn’t it. So
I worked my way up from that and I’ve been the benefits operational manager
for probably say 3 years now I think. So now my responsibilities I oversee all of
the team to the benefits which include the assessment teams so they process all of
the benefit claims, all of the changes that come in, the benefit cap changes, local
housing allowance things like that. Iv got an overpayments team so they deal
with the recovery of any overpaid housing benefit then we’ve got an
adjudication team so they look at any appeals. Discretionary housing payments,
local welfare assistance payments as well.
R Mmmm
L And then we’ve got a welfare visiting teams. They visit our customers to help
with the claims and they also look at the debt size as well, and recovering debt
for the council if someone is in arrears with their council tax.
R Right
L – Rent, we go out ad look at making arrangements with them, food parcels,
things like that.
R Ok
L So we’ve got the budgeting side as well (incoherent) all of that area. So it’s a
big area. We’re based at, we’ve got three sites, so we’ve obviously Beverley,
then we’ve got some offices at Bridlington, and then Goole as well, and we’ve
just got a copule of staff from out of our other areas cos its quite a rural area.
(01.48)

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R Sure yes
L So we’ve got a big area to cover
R Ok
L That’s my …
R Fantastic
L Yea, try and beat that one
(Laughter)
A Right I’m Alison Finn, Strategic Revenues team, principle development officer.
I’ve worked for the council since 1999
R Ok
A Originally started assessing benefit claims when I first joined. Moved onto
adjudication teams, I was doing decision making, appeals, discretionary housing
payments
R Sure
A Things like that. Moved onto managing the what was the benefit and money
advice team which Lisa now manages for Welfare visiting team. Went from
there to into more strategic roles so planning the council tax support scheme
R Oh yea that’s interesting
A So that was my main remit from that point, and then moved onto the strategic
revenue side so we deal with policies and strategies for benefits but also
revenues, rents, council tax, business rates, things like that.
R Fantastic alright. Thank you very much for that so if you can just give me sort of
an overview, you’ve probably touched on this already a little bit, but what you
would see the departments overall role is regarding benefits if that makes sense,
how would you

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L Providing assistance to people who are in financial difficulties really
R Uh huh
L Making it as easy as possible for someone to claim and making them aware of
how they can claim it. Sometimes it’s quite hidden, or people can claim things.
R Yea sure
L And just supporting them through financial difficulties really.
R Ok
A Yeah, I’d agree yeah, just supporting the benefits services that we offer and
also a bit more holistic as well you know if people owe a debt to the council, we
can get involved in that as well from that side of things so maximizing benefit
entitlement.
R Yea sure so income maximization as well as..
A Yeah absolutely and making sure they’re claiming the right kind of benefits,
got the right kind of income.
R Ok. So from the sounds of it both of you were working here. I know that you’ve
only been in post this current
A This current year. I forgot what I’ve done before that actually. I was an
assessor, training officer
R Mmm
A Erm and then just worked my way up from
R Ok. So you were both working for East Riding in 2010. How would you, how
would you conceptualize or consider what the main changes or key changes in
policy directives and/or agendas are at both central government because
obviously you have to implement central government things and at a local level.
Um, I know that’s quite a big

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L I mean to be honest when I see any of the welfare changes come in it is, it’s just
making it more and more difficult for people to be able to afford their needs
and afford to live, erm, perhaps not making the correct policy decisions and
penalizing the people who have already been penalized before whilst
protecting other groups so what you … pensioners
R Right
L So pensioners are protected the majority of the way through … don’t see all
of the cuts but then the working age ones are the ones that are cut, and maybe
them not picking the correct groups within that and it just does seem that
whatever change comes in how are they going to be able to afford the rent, the
essentials, the priority debts, how are they going to afford to live. And we see
more of an increase with food banks as well in our area so we refer a lot of
people or we actually go and collect food parcels for people as well.
R Ok
L So as we’ve come out throughout the year and there’s more and more changes
that are coming in from central government its just hitting the people who have
already been hit hardest to be honest. Um, and its just how do you help them a
way forward
R Ok
L Try to get the head above the sand and be able to afford to live really.
R Sure
L Its getting more and more difficult. I mean internally we haven’t particularly
made any cuts financially to the customers … we’ve still got all the customer
service centres that people can go to which I know local authorities have closed.
We’ve got 14 community hubs where they can go and use a customer service
centre or a library. It’s all in one area. We’ve also got a visiting team who can
visit our customers so we’ve put more resources into them areas whereas other
authorities have cut back in them areas. (06:37)
R Right

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L Um, and the same with the discretionary housing payment. We still have the
option to top that up if we need to and then we’ve still got our, which was a
social fund, we’ve still got our local welfare assistance scheme in place for this
year although it has reduced, we have still got that and we’ve still been able to
cover everybody’s needs as well so as an authority I do think we’re still playing
a big part in the role to help with additional support that we can for our
customers.
R Ok Thank you
L But it is from my side it does appear that they are hitting the ones who have
already been hit the hardest, time and time again. I don’t know if
A I think all the strategies that are coming out from central government since
2010, they are all cost saving measures. They are not looking at what will suit,
what customers need.
R Mmm
A What’s fair like you say Lisa already touched on the fact that they haven’t
touched pension benefits. They’ve made it very unequal policy wide for welfare
reforms but all their issues are around how do they reduce what they are paying
out, not what do customers need or residents need or how can we help people
R Sure
L I do think all this is done as well for local authorities to implement cos they
know they know they can implement all these changes well before universal
credit is rolled out (07:59)
A It just makes it easier for them
L I personally do think that, so they brought in all the local housing allowance,
the benefit cap, they’ve brought everything in for the local authorities to
implement and suffer the pain and …
R so do you mean like distancing themselves from the

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L Yeah
R So you
L Well, we do say its central government’s decision but local authorities have
found, as far as they can see, my housing benefits gone down again that’s paid
by the local authority. So we’ve done all of the hard work and when it does
eventually 2021-2022 when it is fully implemented universal credit, they’ve got
it easier and they’ve got that transition easier
R Right
L I personally think that. So don’t know if you think the sam.e So they’re looking
at the future, they’re looking at somebody in social housing , whether it’s a
housing association or a council property. They’re looking at aligning that in a
local housing allowance level
R Yep
L So we’ll do that and it will be done before the majority of them will go to
universal credit
R Ok Do you have any KPI’s or targets that you’re expected to…
L Yeah we’ve just reduced them actually. Within our area we are the leading
authority for all of our processing times
R Ok
L So we meet quarterly with all the other councils that I said before, Hull, Lincs,
North East Lincs, a few small authorities but we are the best performing so we
say that we’ll process new claims. We’ve just reduced it from April for 16 days.
Changes we say we’ll do in 5 days, sorry 8 days but at the minute I think we’re
processing changes in probably 3 or 4 days. Discretionary housing payments,
we’ve got time limits on all of them. Local welfare assistance. We are all well
within our KPI’s.
R For Local welfare assistance how quickly would you say your

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L We say that we’ll process their application for the emergency within 2 days
and they are done within that time. For the grants we say they’ll be done within
a week is it?
R Yea
L And they’re done within, unless we need further information from the customer
R Sure yea
L But we process 2 days.
A They’re our own KPI’s they aren’t national or anything.
R Do you have any national KPI’s as such ,no?
L For the new claims they’ve got what’s called an NI181 which is a national
performance indicator which was an average of your new claims and your
changes and the government did set a KPI on that which I think was 21 days
which was a while ago but nothing comes out from government, they do look at
performance and they have performance teams (10:44)

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Appendix C: draft interview schedule
Draft Interview Schedule
Interviews will be semi-structured. Rather than following a standardised set of questions,
questions will be open and broad, allowing for participants to discuss in detail specific events
and situations that are meaningful to them, and lead the interview.
The aim is to understand how policymakers interact with post-2010 policy, particularly the
localisation of council tax support and social fund. Interviews will be structured to initially discuss
how post-2010 policy has been dealt with and the impacts on those that claim social security.
Particular interest will be taken to explore how much institutional and personal autonomy is
applied, and how compromises are reached.
This schedule provides only indicative lines of discussion and prompts which will be revised prior
to the research commencing.
Opening – introduction:
Introduction – participant information sheet – consent form – recording
Can you tell me your position here, how long you have worked here, a brief resume of your
responsibilities …
[Prompt!for!experience!in!the!field!–!experienced!welfare!practitioner?!Other!Las?]!
!
How!would!you!describe!the!department’s!role!regarding!benefits?!
!
[Probe!for!what!the!department’s!primary!objectives!are?!Administering?!Income!
maximisation?!Social!role?!Benefit!take-up?!Addressing!other!issues?!Eg!avoid!
homelessness,!advice!referral,!work!opportunities,!emergency!food]!
!
If!participant!was!in!post!pre-2010!(or!was!a!welfare!practitioner!pre-2010)!–!have!there!be!
any!key!changes!in!policy!directives!and/or!agendas!both!at!central!government!and!local!
authority!level,!and!if!so,!what!are!they?!
!
[Do!you!have!targets!/!KPIs!–!what!are!they,!how!they!came!about,!whether!they!have!
changed!and!why?!Any!challenges!in!meeting!them?!Prompt!for!internal!financial!
pressures?!Have!there!been!cuts!in!department?!External!pressures?!demographic!changes?!
Work!pressures?!Workload?]!!
!
Welfare!/!social!security!policy!post-2010:!
!
I!am!going!to!move!on!the!substantive!aspect!of!the!research!which!is!social!security!policy!
post-2010.!!How!would!you!describe!what!the!main!problems!are!in!terms!of!social!
security?!
!

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What!are!the!conceptual!logics?!Worklessness,!dependency,!individual?!Job!supply?!
Training?!Impairment!/!mental!health?!Having!enough!to!live!off!to!look!smart,!dress!
appropriate!etc!…!
!
What!would!you!see!as!the!key!priorities!around!welfare!and!social!security?!
!
Think!throughout!this!process!how!the!problems!and!priorities!address!these!‘problems’!/!
‘priorities’!
!
You!(or!your!department)!have!had!to!provide!/!create!your!own!council!tax!support!
scheme!and!financial!assistance!schemes!from!2013.!!How!did!you!go!about!that?!
!
[Probe!for!influence!and!engagement!of!members!on!this!process,!but!not!too!early?!How!
did!consultation!influence!the!process?!VCS?!Public?!Lived!experience?]!
!
Since!its!implementation!in!2013,!have!you!changed!either!the!CTS!or!FAS?!If!so,!why?!If!
not,!why!not?!
!
[Probe!for!external!influences!incl!VCS,!engagement!of!members?!Further!financial!
pressures?!Impact!on!council!tax!arrears?!Take-up!of!FAS?]!
!
How!would!you!summarise!the!objectives!that!underpinned!the!development!and!roll-out!
of!these!schemes?!
!
[remember!no!ring-fence:!were!the!objectives!self-imposed,!or!were!the!objectives!
externally!imposed?]!
!
Has!your!local!authority!conducted!any!CTS!take-up!campaigns!since!2013?!Did!you!do!so!
before!2013?!
!
[probe!for!reasons!behind!any!changes]!
!
The!benefit!cap!was!introduced!in!2013.!!How!many!families!were!affected?!Average!loss!
per!household?!
!
The!lower!£20k!benefit!cap!will!be!introduced!later!this!year.!How!many!families!are!
projected!to!be!affected?!Average!loss!per!household?!
!
Will!you!provide!any!assistance!to!those!households?!If!so,!what?!
!
[Probe!to!understand!whether!assistance!is!financial,!non-financial?!Who!will!provide!this!
assistance!(eg!benefits,!housing?)?!!!
!
probe!to!consider!whether!they!have!done!any!research!on!the!impact,!whether!it!will!
achieve!govt!targets!
!

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There!has!been!a!large!increase!in!DHPs!since!2010!but!this!budget!has!gradually!decreased.!!
Can!you!talk!through!the!numbers,!and!how!you!allocate!this?!
!
[Probe!for!flexibility!/!autonomy!/!a!‘space!in!the!rules’]!
!
Is!there!a!place!for!further!devolvement!of!welfare!locally!(for!instance,!Attendance!
Allowance)?!!What!would!be!the!advantages!/!disadvantages?!!
!
Policy!enactments:!
!
This!section!will!be!partly!influenced!by!the!responses!in!the!previous!section.!
!
I!would!like!to!discuss!the!use!of!discretion!briefly.!!How!important!are!Discretionary!
Housing!Payments!in!enabling!people!to!get!by?!
[Probe:!if!DHPs!are!reducing,!how!will!people!manage?!Push!to!consider!various!
possibilities]!
!
On!the!same!subject!–!but!slightly!different!–!do!you!(or!your!department)!able!to!exercise!
discretion!in!any!other!ways?!
!
[Probe:!do!you!have!personal!autonomy!to!make!decisions?!do!any!of!the!staff!exercise!
their!discretion?!Is!there!any!sense!of!institutional!culture?]!
!
When!you!get!bulletins!from!DWP!/!DCLG!–!how!closely!do!you!read!and!apply!the!policies!
and!guidelines?!!!
!
[Probe:!who!holds!them!to!account?!Is!it!the!DWP/DCLG?!Is!it!VCS?!Members?!Others?]!
!
In!what!ways!do!you!manage!to!protect!the!resources!of!xxx!local!authority?!
!
[Probe:!this!is!asking!about!gatekeeping!practices?!Eg!telephony!protocols,!emergency!food,!
CAB!
Probe!2:!fully!protected!vs.!good!enough!vs.!creative!non-implementation!
Probe!3:!this!also!is!exploring!how!important!resource!is?!what!happens!if!there!is!an!
underspend?!!Vignette:!the!story!whereby!a!certain!LA!authorised!all!FAS!claims!in!the!last!
month!so!there!was!no!underspend]!!
!
Slight!repetition!from!part!1:!how!have!your!staffing!resources!been!affected!post-2010!and!
how!does!this!affect!how!you!manage!the!administration!of!benefits?!
!
[Probe:!look!at!policy!overload!/!coping!and!managing!–!or!was!there!inefficiencies?]!
!
Final!question:!
!
Are!there!any!questions!you!have!for!me,!or!any!other!comments!you!would!like!to!make?!
!

! ! 200617280
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Appendix D: participation information sheet
!
PARTICIPANT!INFORMATION!SHEET!
!
Welfare!reform!post-2010!
!
You!are!being!invited!to!take!part!in!a!research!project!which!is!being!undertaken!as!part!of!
my!Masters!degree!in!Sociology!at!the!University!of!Leeds.!Before!you!decide!whether!to!
take!part!or!not,!it!is!important!for!you!to!understand!why!the!research!is!being!done!and!
what!it!will!involve.!Please!take!time!to!read!the!following!information!carefully!and!please!
feel!free!to!ask!me!if!there!is!anything!that!is!not!clear!or!if!you!would!like!more!
information.!Take!time!to!decide!whether!or!not!you!wish!to!take!part.!
!
Purpose!of!the!project!
!
The!purpose!of!the!project!is!a!study!of!discourse!surrounding!welfare!reform!post-2010.!!
Part!of!that!is!to!understand!how!policymakers!and!practitioners!interact!with!post-2010!
policy,!particularly!the!localisation!of!council!tax!support!and!social!fund,!and!how!this!
affects!people!who!need!social!security.!You!have!been!invited!to!take!part!in!this!because!
of!your!role!and!your!perspective!is!incredibly!valuable!to!the!research.!!
!
The!interviews!are!confidential!and!information!you!give!will!be!anonymised.!It!is!up!to!you!
to!decide!whether!or!not!to!take!part.!If!you!do!decide!to!take!part!you!will!be!given!this!
information!sheet!to!keep!(and!be!asked!to!sign!a!consent!form)!and!you!can!still!withdraw!
after!the!research!has!been!conducted.!You!do!not!have!to!give!a!reason.!
!
What!will!I!be!asked!to!do!?!
!
If!you!agree!to!take!part!in!this!research,!I!will!interview!you!at!a!time!that!is!convenient!
with!you.!In!the!interview!you!will!be!asked!various!questions!about!your!role!in!relation!to!
welfare!and!social!security!policy!and!provision,!any!changes!in!the!nature!of!your!work!over!
the!last!6!years!and!how!these!are!addressed!at!a!local!level.The!interview!is!unlikely!to!take!
more!than!45!minutes.!!The!interview!will!be!recorded!for!analysis!and!anonymised!quotes!
will!be!used!within!the!write!up!of!the!research.!No!other!use!of!the!interview!will!be!made!
without!your!written!permission.!
!
Potential!benefits!and!disadvantages!of!taking!part!
!
By!taking!part,!you!will!be!contributing!to!anonymised!research!that!will!be!passed!on!to!
MPs,!local!policymakers!and!media!which!throws!a!light!on!the!impact!of!welfare!reform!
post-2010.!!!
!
The!interview!will!be!conducted!in!a!sensitive!way,!and!is!unlikely!to!touch!on!areas!that!are!
upsetting!and!distressing.!
!
Confidentiality!

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!
All!the!information!collected!about!you!during!the!course!of!the!research!will!be!kept!!
strictly!confidential.!You!will!not!be!able!to!be!identified!by!any!personal!information!in!any!
reports!or!publications.!You,!your!role!and!organisation!will!be!anonymised!using!a!
pseudonym.!!
!
Further!information!
!
If!you!have!any!questions!or!require!further!information,!please!find!below!my!details!
together!with!those!of!my!supervisor.!
!
Richard!Bridge,!School!of!Sociology!and!Social!Policy,!University!of!Leeds,!Leeds!LS2!9LU!
tel!07854!007452!
email!ph11rkmb@leeds.ac.uk!!
!
Dr!Kim!Allen,!School!of!Sociology!and!Social!Policy,!University!of!Leeds,!Leeds!LS2!9LU!
tel!0113!3439760!
email!k.allen1@leeds.ac.uk!!
!
Thank!you!for!reading!through!this!information!sheet.!!!You!will!be!provided!with!a!copy!of!
this!information!sheet!and!a!copy!of!the!consent!form!for!your!records.!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
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!
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Appendix E: Participant Consent form
!
Consent!to!take!part!in!Research!Project!on!welfare!reform!post-2010!
!
Add!your!
initials!next!to!
the!statement!
if!you!agree!
I!confirm!that!I!have!read!and!understand!the!information!sheet!given!to!me!explaining!
the!above!research!project!and!consent!to!my!interview!being!recorded.!
!
I!have!been!given!a!full!explanation!of!the!nature,!purpose,!location!and!likely!duration!
of!the!study,!and!of!what!I!will!be!expected!to!do.!I!have!been!given!the!opportunity!to!
ask!questions!on!all!aspects!of!the!study!and!have!understood!the!advice!and!
information!given!as!a!result.!
!
I!understand!that!my!participation!is!voluntary!and!that!I!am!free!to!withdraw!prior!to!
1!August!2016!without!giving!any!reason!and!without!there!being!any!negative!
consequences.!In!addition,!should!I!not!wish!to!answer!any!particular!question!or!
questions,!I!am!free!to!decline.!!
!
If!you!wish!to!withdraw!or!have!any!further!questions,!you!should!contact!Richard!
Bridge!on!07854!007452!or!alternatively!email!him!on!ph11rkmb@leeds.ac.uk!
!
In!the!event!that!you!withdraw!from!the!study,!all!data!relating!to!your!interview!will!
be!destroyed.!
!
I!give!permission!for!the!researcher!to!have!access!to!my!anonymised!responses.!I!
understand!that!my!name!will!not!be!linked!with!the!research!materials,!and!I!will!not!
be!identified!or!identifiable!in!the!report!or!reports!that!result!from!the!research.!!!
!
I!understand!that!my!responses!will!be!kept!strictly!confidential.!
!
I!agree!for!the!data!collected!from!me!to!be!used!in!relevant!future!research,!articles!
and!reports!in!an!anonymised!form.!!
!
I!agree!to!take!part!in!the!above!research!project!and!will!inform!the!lead!researcher!
should!my!contact!details!change.!
!
!
Name!of!participant!
!
Participant’s!signature!
!
Date!
!
Name!of!lead!
researcher!!
Richard!K!M!Bridge!
Signature!
!
Date*!
!
!
*To!be!signed!and!dated!in!the!presence!of!the!participant.!!
!

! ! 200617280
!
95!
You!will!receive!a!copy!of!this!signed!and!dated!participant!consent!form!as!well!as!the!
information!sheet.!A!copy!of!the!signed!and!dated!consent!form!will!be!kept!with!the!
project’s!main!documents!in!a!secure!location.!!

! ! 200617280
!
96!
Appendix F: key word frequencies
Word
Duncan
Smith
(2010a)
Duncan
Smith
(2010b)
Cameron
(2012)
Osborne
(2012)
Cameron
(2015)
Duncan
Smith
(2015)
Crabb
(2015)
Work
50
27
55
26
40
90
54
Poverty
13
4
10
1
5
1
9
Welfare
9
4
30
9
10
6
29
System
15
15
29
4
10
24
22
Benefit
22
19
53
3
3
20
6
Family
1
3
7
3
22
4
27
Life
chances
0
0
0
0
2
1
13
Fair
6
2
5
6
0
2
0
Social
security
0
0
0
0
0
0
0