The work of the authors in this section draws on a wide variety of approaches and the analysis of very different policy areas, but when taken together they serve to highlight some key issues for the study of social policy. These include not only the currently much-debated strengths of evidence-based research and its implications for policy and practice, but also the variety of processes which reflect the important role of ideas in social policy and which can contribute to our understanding of contemporary society and politics. They also serve to reinforce the recognition that the making and implementation of social policy is inevitably a continuous and sometimes cyclical process. In addition, several of the pieces make clear that while academic research can be both interesting and insightful on its own account, it can also have very significant implications for policy and practice.

For example, Pahl’s chapter (Chapter Two) considers family finances and looks at why some people make what are apparently irrational financial decisions. This draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives and applies these to practical case study examples to highlight issues such as the limited rationality of many consumers in their financial decision making; access to financial services; and increasing concern about the ‘digital divide’. Given recent and likely future developments in financial services Pahl’s chapter raises a number of what should be significant concerns for policy makers in this field. Similarly the work of Powell, Exworthy and Berney (Chapter Three) builds on an examination of the rhetoric of New Labour around ‘partnership’ and goes on to develop a conceptual framework to illustrate its application with empirical material based on the implementation of policy at local levels. This is expressed in terms of ‘playing the game of partnership’. The ladder of partnership is examined through an analysis of stakeholders’ views on health inequalities policy and includes a number of potential lessons about the relationship between the centre and locality and the development of partnerships, including crucially, the finding that the rules within which they operate are often not clear to local stakeholders.

In Chapter Four, Heron charts the relationship between Etzioni’s communitarianism and current British social policy developments in a range of policy areas including social security, education and housing and regeneration. It illustrates the prevalence of communitarian values in New Labour’s social policies and the extent to which they echo the spirit of American communitarism.