ABSTRACT
New Labour’s commitment to a ‘one-nation’ politics and to strengthening communities (see chapter 1) goes with a concern to achieve an ‘inclusive’ society with strong ‘social cohesion’. Reducing ‘social exclusion’ is therefore a policy priority, a target both for the welfareto-work programme (the ‘New Deal’) and for the Social Exclusion Unit that was set up in December 1997 as a unit within the Cabinet Office steered personally by the Prime Minister. The importance attached to this initiative is evident from the claim of Peter Mandelson that ‘the government’s success would be judged by its response to the crisis of social exclusion’,1 and Blair’s statement that the SEU is ‘an experiment in policy-making that is vital to the country’s future’.2
