The Social Policy Digest went online in 2002, and since then has developed into a major web-based resource on UK social policy issues. By the end of 2010 it contained around 28,000 entries, covering policy developments and research findings across the whole range of social policy fields.

Social policy research often depends on the application of generalisations from social science. Questions like ‘what works?’ assume that general principles can be translated from specific examples into other contexts. Pawson and Tilley argue that effective policy research has to depend on the idea of a ‘generative mechanism’, or relationships of cause and effect. Explaining issues in terms of causes, however, is problematic. Social phenomena tend to be multifaceted, and even relatively simple phenomena are likely to be influenced by a range of different factors; causal analyses have to be developed by interpretation, and the analyses are frequently wrong. Causal explanations often claim to do more than they can deliver: even if there is a convincing causal explanation, it does not necessarily imply any prescription for policy. There are ways of generalising, however, that do not depend on causal analysis. Phronesis develops principles experientially, setting them against empirical evidence, and it does not need to consider underlying mechanisms to be effective. Phronesis provides the basis for a critique of technocratic approaches, a rationale for action and a focus for the development of alternative methods and approaches. A dependence on phronesis cannot avoid all of the pitfalls associated with generalisation, but it is more flexible, and less presumptuous, than a causal approach.

In ‘Generalisation and phronesis’, Paul Spicker argues that the methodology of empirical research in social policy would be improved by drawing on Aristotle's concept of phronesis (φρόνησις) – which is generally translated as practical wisdom or prudence. He argues against versions of generalisation that rely on cause-and-effect, whether through deductive or inductive means. He maintains, however, that social policy research must still aim at making generalisations, for which he recommends the application of phronesis.

Paul Spicker's article has provided a thought-provoking contribution to which I am broadly sympathetic. I have two principal concerns, however. Firstly, it fails to contextualise itself vis-à-vis some key debates. Secondly, therefore, it neglects to ask some crucial philosophical and methodological questions. As such, researchers should pause before embracing a phronetic social policy. Below, I specify the nature of my concerns, paying particular attention to the implications of phronesis for universalism. My aim is not to critique Spicker's entire article, but to draw attention to key issues to which those interested in phronetic approaches should attend.

This article examines the relationship between the family and work histories of older women and their personal incomes in later life, using retrospective data from the first 15 waves of the British Household Panel Survey. The association between women's family histories and their incomes later in life are relatively weak, explaining only a small proportion of the overall variation in older women's incomes. Divorce, early widowhood and re-marriage are not associated with any significant differences in older women's incomes, while motherhood is only associated with a small reduction in incomes later in life. While there are significant differences in the work histories of older women with different family histories, this translates into relatively small differences in their personal incomes, because the types of employment career pursued by most women are not associated with significantly higher retirement incomes and because public transfers dampen work history-related differentials, especially for widows. On the one hand, this could be seen as a positive finding in that the ‘pension penalty’ associated with life-course events such as motherhood and divorce is not as severe as often anticipated. On the other hand, the main reason for this is that the pension returns to working longer are relatively low, particularly for women with few qualifications. The analysis suggests that women retiring over the next two decades are unlikely to benefit significantly from the additional years they have spent in employment, because most of this increase has been in part-time employment. The article highlights the tensions between two objectives: rewarding work, and protecting the most vulnerable, such as carers, long-term disabled and unemployed. Resolving this dilemma involves moving away from a close association between pension entitlements and work history and towards universal entitlement based on a citizen's pension.

Sure Start was set up in 1998 as a flagship policy of the first New Labour government, with the promise of ten years funding. However, in 2003 it was superseded by plans for the establishment of Children's Centres, a universal programme rather than one for disadvantaged areas as in the case of Sure Start local programmes. The government claimed that the shift to Children's Centres represented continuity, but, using historical methods and key informant interviews, this paper shows that there was considerable change, particularly in the programme content and governance of the new centres. The paper explores the reasons for the policy shift in terms of factors arising from changes in government's goals for Sure Start and for children's services more broadly on the one hand, and from evidence of programme failure on the other. It concludes by reflecting on why the shift to Children's Centres was claimed as continuity rather than change, and what this tells us about the nature of policy change.

The present paper aims to examine the effect of the transition from a state socialist regime to democracy and a liberal economy on women's perceptions of the consequences of employment breaks due to childcare on their further careers in seven post-socialist Eastern and Central European countries. The paper uses data from the 2004 European Social Survey to explore whether women who interrupted their careers to look after young children were more likely to suffer negative consequences for their careers after the transition from socialism to a market-based economy than before the lifting of the Iron Curtain. The paper does this by comparing the consequences perceived by women whose children were born before 1987 with those of women with at least one child born later. It begins by grouping together women from across the region, and then looks at the differences by country of the consequences as perceived by these women. It concludes that women across the region were more likely to experience negative consequences after the transition than before. However, the effect of transition is not found to differ across countries using the ESS data.

This article examines the debate between the power resources and ‘new politics’ scholars concerning the politics of welfare state retrenchment in advanced industrial democracies. Both approaches make competing claims concerning the relevance of partisan differences in the current age of welfare reform. This article tests the new politics hypothesis that partisanship has had a declining impact on welfare politics over time through an analysis of the growth in the public share of health care spending in 18 countries from 1960 to 2000. Consistent with the new politics approach, the results reveal that the partisan character of government no longer plays a significant role in determining changes in public responsibility for health care during the new politics period. This suggests that the current period is characterised by general agreement across party lines on the broad parameters of the health care system, reducing the intense partisan conflicts of the past to debates over reform at the margins of the health care system.

Indices of material deprivation are of increasing interest in Britain and the EU as potential markers of poverty, as an alternative, or complement, to measures of low income. This is the first panel regression analysis of the relationship between households' incomes and deprivation scores over time. We show a close underlying link (people with long-term low incomes report long-term deprivation), but only a weak dynamic link (people whose income increases do not always report a commensurate fall in deprivation). The implications for poverty measurement are important both to academic analysts and to policy-makers.

The voluntary and community sector in England is playing an increasingly important role in the delivery of public services to older adults and in doing so they rely on unpaid volunteers. In this article, we draw on the findings of a recent qualitative study of the impact on the voluntary and community sector of delivering ‘low-level’ public services that promote independent living and wellbeing in old age. The fieldwork focused on services that help older adults aged 70+ living in remote rural communities across three English regions. Those charged with service delivery, which is increasingly the voluntary and community sector, face particular challenges, such as uncertain funding regimes and reliance on volunteer labour.

The concept of institutional racism re-emerged in political discourse in the late 1990s after a long hiatus. Despite it initially seeming pivotal to New Labour's reform of policing and the antecedent of a new race equality agenda, it has remained a contested concept that has been critiqued by multiple constituencies. This paper notes the ambiguities and contradictions of the concept and considers its validity as an explanatory concept for long-observed ethnic inequalities in educational attainment and stop and search. In so doing, it argues for its retention, but only within a multilevel framework that incorporates racialisations operating at the micro, meso and macro levels.