ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with one of the great debates of contemporary social policy, and one which is older than the discipline itself. It focuses on contemporary controversies concerning privatisation and marketisation in the longer-term context of such debates within social welfare. The book considers a set of issues that emerge as relevant to social policy services more widely. It deals with the period of Conservative government between 1979 and 1997, when such policies occupied an unambiguous place on the agenda of administration. The book also focuses on the emerging record of the New Labour government, elected in May 1997. It provides a series of key documents, setting out the ideological framework within which privatisation and marketisation policies are derived and disputed and setting out the claims made for and against such policies in their application to social welfare services.
