9. Is a Citizen’s Income Policy Process Feasible?

Cf. M.J. Smith (1993) ‘Policy networks’, pp. 56–65 in M.J. Smith, Pressure, Power and Policy (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf), also at pp. 76–86 in Michael Hill (ed.) The Policy Process: A reader, 2nd edition (Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf). Smith locates policy networks on a spectrum between policy communities (stable groups, with few members who frequently interact with government, and who possess substantial resources) and issue groups (changing groups with large numbers of participants, with little contact with government, and with few resources). John Hodge and Stuart Lowe (2009) Understanding the Policy Process: Analysing welfare policy and practice, 2nd edition (Bristol: Policy Press), p. 160, makes a similar distinction between ‘policy communities’ and ‘issue networks’. cf. Thomas A. Birkland (2005) An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, concepts, and models of public policy making, 2nd edition (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe), pp. 97–103: Birkland defines a policy community as ‘those actors who are actively involved in policy making in a particular domain’, and a policy network as ‘the relationships among actors in the policy domain’. Given the different ways in which terminology has been used, I shall use ‘policy network’ to mean any set of relationships between institutions and individuals involved in a policy discussion, and I shall follow Hudson and Lowe in defining a ‘policy community’ as a tight-knit network with a professional or some other well-organized core, and an ‘issue network’ as a loose network without such a coordinating core.

Nikolaus Zahariadis (1999) ‘Ambiguity, Time, and Multiple Streams’, p. 90.

www.​hmrc.​gov.​uk/​childbenefit/​start/​who-qualifies/​new-arrivals-uk.​htm

M.J. Smith (1993) ‘Policy networks’, pp. 56–65.

M.J. Smith (1993) ‘Policy networks’, pp. 56–65.

Cf. Martin Minogue (1997) ‘Theory and Practice in Public Policy and Administration’, pp. 10–29 in Michael Hill (ed) The Policy Process: A Reader (London and New York: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf), pp. 12, 15; Robert Gregory (1997) ‘Political Rationality or Incrementalism?’ pp. 175–91 in Michael Hill (ed) The Policy Process: A Reader (London and New York: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf), p. 189.

Kaushik Basu (1980) Revealed Preference of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 44, 86; Michael Marinetto (1999) Studies of the Policy Process, p. 7; J.J. Richardson and A.G. Jordan (1979) Governing Under Pressure: The policy process in a post-parliamentary democracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), p. 28.

Michael Hil (2009), The Public Policy Process, pp. 156–7, 164; Thomas A. Birkland (2005) An Introduction to the Policy Process, p. 213.

Gilbert Smith and David May (1997) ‘The Artificial Debate between Rationalist and Incrementalist Models of Decision Making’, pp. 163–74 in Michael Hill (ed) The Policy Process: A Reader (London and New York: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf), p. 166; Richard Rose (2006) ‘Inheritance before Choice in Public Policy’, pp. 51–64 in Leslie Budd, Julie Charlesworth and Rob Paton, Making Policy Happen (London: Routledge), p. 51.

Michael Hill (2009) The Public Policy Process, p. 191; J. R. P. French Jr., and B. H. Raven (1959) ‘The Bases of Social Power’, pp. 150–67 in D. Cartwright (ed.) Studies in Social Power (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research), reprinted as pp. 150–67 in D. S. Pugh (1984) Organization Theory: Selected Readings, 2nd edition (Harmondsworth: Penguin).

A point made by John McDonnell MP at a meeting at the House of Commons on the 4 March 2014.

Gilbert Smith and David May (1997) ‘The Artificial Debate between Rationalist and Incrementalist Models of Decision Making’, p. 171.

Much of the material in this extended case study first appeared in a paper given at the Social Policy Association Conference in Sheffield in July 2014.

Matthew Pennycook (2012) What Price a Living Wage? Understanding the impact of a Living Wage on firm-level wage bills (London: The Resolution Foundation), pp. 4–5. In 2014, the Greater London Authority (GLA) set the London living wage rate at £9.15 per hour; academics at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University have calculated a separate rate for the rest of the UK, at £7.85 per hour. Both of these rates have gained widespread acceptance. For details of the calculation method used by the GLA, see GLA Economics (2014) A Fairer London: The 2014 Living Wage in London (London: GLA Economics Living Wage Unit), www.​london.​gov.​uk/​sites/​default/​files/​living-wage-2014.​pdf. For details of the calculation method used by Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy, see Centre for Research in Public Policy (2014) Working Paper: Uprating the UK Living Wage in 2014 (Loughborough: Centre for Research in Public Policy), www.​lboro.​ac.​uk/​research/​crsp/​mis/​thelivingwage/​. Both the UK and London living wage rates are explicitly premised on the full take-up of tax credits and other means-tested benefits (such as Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support). If take-up of such entitlements was not factored into living wage calculations, then the appropriate rates would be far higher. For example, the GLA estimates an hourly London living wage rate of £11.65 if means-tested benefits were to be excluded from the calculations.

William Beveridge, in Eleanor Rathbone (1949) Family Allowances (London: George Allen and Unwin) (a new edition of The Disinherited Family with an epilogue by William Beveridge), p. 270.

John Macnicol (1980) The Movement for Family Allowances, 1918–1945: A study in social policy development (London: Heinemann), pp. 5–10, 20–23; Pat Thane (1996) Foundations of the Welfare State, 2nd edition (London: Longman), pp. 63–4, 202.

Another of the presuppositions on which Beveridge based his report was another proposed universal benefit: the National Health Service.

A. B. Atkinson (1969) Poverty in Britain and the Reform of Social Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 24; Jonathan Bradshaw and Fran Bennett (2011) ‘National Insurance: past, present, and future?’ Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 19 (3), pp. 207–209; Pat Thane (2011) ‘The making of National Insurance, 1911’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 19 (3), 211–19.

Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend (1966) The Poor and the Poorest: A new analysis of the Ministry of Labour’s Family Expenditure Surveys of 1953–54 and 1960 (London: Bell). Also influential was Richard Titmuss (1962) Income Distribution and Social Change (London: Allen and Unwin).

J.J. Richardson and A.G. Jordan (1979) Governing Under Pressure, p. 121; David Marsh (1998) ‘The Development of the Policy Networks Approach’, pp. 1–17 in David Marsh (ed.), Comparing Policy Networks (Buckingham: Open University Press), p. 6.

Centre for Social Justice (2009) Dynamic Benefits: Towards welfare that works (London: Centre for Social Justice), p. 265; Department for Work and Pensions (2010) 21st Century Welfare, Cm 7913 (London: The Stationery Office), p. 21; Department for Work and Pensions (2011) Universal Credit: welfare that works, Cm 7957 (London: The Stationery Office), p. 13.

Working Tax Credits had been distinguished from Child Tax Credits and means-tested out-of-work benefits in an attempt to reduce the stigma attached to means-tested in-work benefits. Universal Credit removes the distinction. See Hartley Dean and Gerry Mitchell (2011) Wage top-ups and work incentives: The implications of the UK’s Working Tax Credit scheme: A preliminary report (London: London School of Economics); Hartley Dean, ‘The Ethical Deficit of the UK’s proposed Universal Credit: Pimping the Precariat?’ Political Quarterly, 83 (2), 353–9.

Nikolaus Zahariadis (1999) ‘Ambiguity, Time, and Multiple Streams’, p. 75.

Paul Edwards and Mark Gilman (1998) A National Minimum Wage: Stimulus to economic efficiency?; Stephen Bazen (1991) Introducing a National Minimum Wage in the UK (Canterbury: University of Kent), pp. 3–4, 11, 17. Cf Trade Union Congress (1995) Arguments for a National Minimum Wage, p. 54: ‘An increase in the [French National Minimum Wage] improves the relative position of the low paid. Wage differentials are only partially restored. Increases in the [French National Minimum Wage] may reduce young persons’ employment by a small amount. There is no effect on adult employment.’ And cf. Richard Dickens and Alan Manning (2002) Has the National Minimum Wage Reduced UK Wages? (London: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics), p. 9: ‘The impact of the NMW on overall wage inequality is rather small, with no detectable impact on earnings at the 10th percentile.’

Chris Pond and Steve Winyard (1983) The Case for a National Minimum Wage, p. 53; Paul Edwards and Mark Gilman (1998) A National Minimum Wage: Stimulus to economic efficiency?; Paul Robson, Shirley Dex, and Frank Wilkinson (1997) The Costs of a National Statutory Minimum Wage in Britain, p. 20.

Chris Pond and Steve Winyard (1983) The Case for a National Minimum Wage, pp. 13, 19. Cf. Trade Union Congress (1995) Arguments for a National Minimum Wage, p. 20. The report stated that 86 % of employers believed that a National Minimum Wage of £4.10 per week would not raise unemployment levels. On the productivity and efficiency gains related to National Minimum Wages, see Martin Watts (2010) ‘How should Minimum Wages be Set in Australia’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 52 (2), 131–49.

From 1 October 2015, NMW rates are: adult rate, £6.70 per hour; rate for eighteen- to twenty-year-olds, £5.30 per hour; rate for sixteen- to seventeen-year-olds, £3.87 per hour; apprentice rate, £3.30 per hour.

www.​citizensuk.​org/​about

www.​livingwage.​org.​uk/​history; www.​lboro.​ac.​uk/​research/​crsp/​mis/​thelivingwage

In 2014, the GLA set the London living wage rate at £9.15 per hour; academics at the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University have calculated a separate rate for the rest of the UK at £7.85 per hour. Both of these rates have gained widespread acceptance. For details of the calculation method used by the GLA, see GLA Economics (2014) A Fairer London: The 2014 Living Wage in London (London: GLA Economics Living Wage Unit), www.​london.​gov.​uk/​sites/​default/​files/​living-wage-2014.​pdf. For details of the calculation method used by Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy, see Centre for Research in Public Policy (2014) Working Paper: Uprating the UK Living Wage in 2014 (Loughborough: Centre for Research in Public Policy), www.​lboro.​ac.​uk/​research/​crsp/​mis/​thelivingwage/​

Ford News, April 1934, p. 43. www.​thehenryford.​org/​research/​henryFordQuotes.​aspx

www.​livingwage.​org.​uk/​what-are-benefits-accreditation

www.​gov.​uk/​government/​speeches/​chancellor-george-osbornes-summer-budget-2015-speech

Both the UK and London living wage rates are explicitly premised on the full take-up of tax credits and other means-tested benefits (such as housing benefit and council tax benefit). If take-up of such entitlements was not factored into living wage calculations, then the appropriate rates would be far higher. For example, the GLA estimates an hourly London living wage rate of £11.65 if means-tested benefits are excluded from the calculations (GLA Economics (2014) A Fairer London: The 2014 Living Wage in London (London: GLA Economics Living Wage Unit), www.​london.​gov.​uk/​sites/​default/​files/​living-wage-2014.​pdf).

See Chap. 1.

J. Harris (1981) ‘Some aspects of social policy in Britain during the Second World War,’ p. 258.

House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee Sub-Committee (1982) The Structure of Personal Income Taxation and Income Support: Minutes of Evidence, HC 331–ix (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office), p. 423; cf. Brandon Rhys Williams (1989) Stepping Stones to Independence: National Insurance after 1990 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press); Hermione Parker (1989) Instead of the Dole: An enquiry into integration of the tax and benefit systems (London: Routledge), pp. 224–53.

House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee (1983) Enquiry into the Structure of Personal Income Taxation and Income Support, Third Special Report, Session 1982–3, section 13.35, quoted in Hermione Parker (1989) Instead of the Dole: An enquiry into integration of the tax and benefit systems (London: Routledge), p. 100.

www.​citizensincome.​org

For instance, at a conference in London on 4 March 2015 organized by the Fabian Society and Bright Blue, both the Fabian Society and the Adam Smith Institute announced research projects on Citizen’s Income.

Malcolm Torry (2013) Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income, pp. 116–17, 119–20, 131–47; Citizen’s Income Trust (2013) Citizen’s Income: A brief introduction (London: Citizen’s Income Trust).

Department for Work and Pensions (2011) A state pension for the 21st century, Cm 8053 (London: The Stationery Office), pp. 10, 29–35; Malcolm Torry (2013) Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income, pp. 38–42.

www.​pensionspolicyin​stitute.​org.​uk/​

Malcolm Torry (2013) Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income, pp. 69–75; Malcolm Torry (2013) ‘Pilot Projects in India’, Citizen’s Income Newsletter, issue 2 for 2013, pp. 4–5.

www.​jrf.​org.​uk/​sites/​files/​jrf/​YSJ-Lecture-April-2014.​pdf