What needs fixing to build back better: fault lines in the British welfare state on the eve of the pandemic

Please register here.

The event is the launch of findings from a major research programme led by LSE’s Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE).

This event will reflect on the welfare state and public services on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, and will identify lessons and insights about what is required as Britain transitions into the recovery phase from COVID-19 in order to ‘build back better’.

The event marks the publication of The Conservative Governments’ Record on Social Policy from May 2015 to pre-COVID 2020: Policies, Spending and Outcomes, edited by Polly Vizard and John Hills. The research is a partnership between CASE and colleagues at Manchester University, Heriot Watt University and the Institute of Education, University College London and is funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

The report includes contributions by a large team of experts across ten major areas of social policy (social security, employment, early years, education, higher education, health, adult social care, homelessness and complex needs, physical safety and security, and social mobility). It identifies 8 aspects of stalling social progress, and 5 key cross-cutting findings from a comprehensive assessment of social policies and social inequalities on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic shock that it triggered. A concluding section identifies 5 central challenges that must be addressed as Britain transitions into the recovery phase from COVID-19.

The event will be introduced by Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of London School of Economics and Political Science, and is chaired by Sir Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy at the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship, LSE. Speakers will include:

• Dr Polly Vizard, CASE Associate Director and Associate Professorial Research Fellow, LSE and project principal investigator
• Dr Tania Burchardt, CASE Associate Director and Associate Professor in Social Policy, LSE and project co-investigator
• The Rt Hon. Lord Willetts FRS, President of the Resolution Foundation and Member of Parliament for Havant (1992-2015)
• Moira Wallace, Visiting Professor of Practice at CASE and former Civil Servant and Director of the Social Exclusion Unit 1997 to 2001
• Carl Emmerson, Deputy Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and editor of the annual IFS Green Budget
• Dame Frances Cairncross, former journalist and current member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Chair of the project Advisory Board

There will be a Q&A so you can raise issues and influence the discussion.

This event is free and open to all, although pre-registration is required.. Register here.