Since the 1990s there have been far-reaching reforms to public services in England, resulting in less direct state provision of public service and an increased marketisation of the public sector through the outsourcing of services to a range of competing providers (McKay et al, 2011; Hazenberg and Hall, 2014). This commitment to a diversity of welfare provision has fostered a ‘mixed economy of welfare’, increasing the role of the third and private sectors as providers of public services (Powell, 2007).

This chapter considers changes to social care since the 1990s, which have culminated in the bulk of care being delivered outside of the statutory sector, a development that more recently has been overlaid by a commitment to personalised care services. The chapter also looks more broadly at the encouragement of social enterprise by government, particularly since 2010 when the Conservative party took power, first in coalition and then as a single-party majority government. The chapter then goes on to consider micro-enterprises in particular, setting out their key features. It considers the claims that are made about such enterprises in a care context and uses these as the basis of four research hypotheses.

Marketising social care

English social care took its current form from the National Assistance Act 1948, although it has longer antecedents in the workhouse culture of the Victorian Poor Law (Birch, 1974). Prior to the 1970s, responsibility for personal social services was dispersed between different local government branches and the NHS (Kirkpatrick, 2006). Following recommendations from the 1968 Seebohm Report, the early 1970s saw a consolidation of the system and the formation of unified social services departments within local government. Local authorities took responsibility for planning and delivering services, with a limited role being played by independent organisations.

As part of broader public management changes under the Thatcher governments, the NHS and Community Care Act 1990 established a mixed economy framework for service provision within adult social care (Baxter et al, 2011). Local authorities were urged to move away from providing their social care services ‘in-house’ and instead to purchase provision from private and voluntary sector providers on behalf of service users.