Delivering the UK welfare state

Eleanor Carter and Michael Gibson

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2025, vol. 41, issue 1, 213-222

Abstract: A range of welfare services are delivered to citizens on behalf of the state, both directly by public servants, and by private actors from the for-profit and non-profit sectors. In this paper, we explore the multiple roles which the state must play in this mixed welfare system. We trace the key trends in the delivery of UK welfare services over time and analyse the binary distinction between ‘public’ and ‘outsourced’ delivery. We examine the challenges of contracted delivery, and explore emerging models emphasizing partnership and collaboration around delivery, before finally considering the role that citizens themselves play in delivering welfare.

Keywords: welfare services; delivery; outsourcing; formal-relational contracting; personalization; co-production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/graf012 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxford:v:41:y:2025:i:1:p:213-222.

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy is currently edited by Christopher Adam

More articles in Oxford Review of Economic Policy from Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().