For the last ten years, the Australian system of services for frail elderly people has been undergoing significant reforms. Prior to that time, a series of government reviews and inquiries had repeatedly identified the same problems, including the dominance of institutional care, the inadequate supply of home and community based services, the lack of co-ordination, the inefficiency, and the unequal distribution of services by geographical area. Changes since the implementation of the Aged Care Reform Strategy in 1985 have been considerable, particularly with regard to the residential care sector. This article is concerned with the policy responses which emerged under the Strategy, and their impact on aged care service delivery in Australia.

Major policy developments in Northern Ireland concerned with socioeconomic differences between Protestants and Catholics have involved a concern with structural issues and the nature of the policy making process. These initiatives have raised considerable debate concerning the extent to which religion-specific policies are appropriate. In this article each of these initiatives is considered in detail. It is suggested that the debates in Northern Ireland could have significance in the light of proposals to develop race-specific policies in Britain.

The 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act introduced sweeping changes to health and social welfare services. The reforms to community care were dominated by the introduction of markets for social care. We argue that the new markets cannot be guaranteed to deliver the range of services required to meet community care objectives. When they began to assume their new responsibilities, few key purchasers had a basic understanding of the functioning and imperfections of markets. Consequently, they were poorly equipped to anticipate or ameliorate the sources of market failure that we identify. Like any other relatively ill-informed purchaser, local authorities risk being unable to buy what they want on behalf of their residents and at an appropriate volume, cost and quality. We discuss where and how market imperfections are likely to occur. In this context, we offer an economic framework to help in the shaping and managing of social care markets.

The availability of childcare is an important factor in enabling motherhood to be combined with paid employment. This article uses evidence from the fifth sweep of the National Child Development Study to analyse the use of childcare by a cohort of employed women who were aged 33 in 1991. There is a heavy reliance on informal care by women in partnerships and also by lone mothers. Formal care is most heavily used by women whose youngest child is under five, especially if the woman works full-time. Reported costs of childcare represent nearly a quarter of net weekly earnings for mothers with a child under five. Formal childcare is shown to play an important role in facilitating women's full-time employment. Full-time employment is the route by which women achieve financial independence from their partner. It also increases the likelihood of contributing to an occupational pension which, in turn, has implications for financial independence in later life. However, the majority of women in this cohort do not take the full-time route. For these women, low earnings potential and part-time working make paid childcare uneconomic and reinforces both their role as minor financial contributors within the family and their lack of pension provision in later life.

A new chief executive of the Benefits Agency, and a new chairperson of the Social Security Advisory Committee, have been appointed. In its response to the Social Security Committee's recent report on social security expenditure, the government revealed that by 1992/3, 30 per cent of individuals were living in households receiving at least one means-tested benefit. In November 1994, there were 5.7 million income support claimants, with just under 1 million partners and 3.2 million other dependants; almost 1.7 million claimants had one or more deductions from their weekly income support (25:1/97, 1.7; 24:3/95, 1.3). In May 1994, more than 3 million people had been claiming income support for more than two years (24:2/94, 1.1). An Institute of Economic Affairs (EEA) report claimed that recent governments' tax and benefit policies have played a central role in increasing welfare dependency.