In the news

This International Women’s Day, Ceryl Davies, Social Work Lecturer, talks about the importance of giving young women a voice when discussing sexual coercion experienced by them in their intimate relationships. …Read more

Following the publication of the government’s Transforming public procurement Green Paper, which aims to speed up and simplify procurement processes, Mark Neild, senior lecturer at the University of Bristol’s Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, calls for a radical rethink of public service commissioning to reflect the public’s values, not economic value.…Read more

Clive Diaz, author of 'Decision Making in Child and Family Social Work', looks at the first indications of the effects of COVID-19 and adapted social worker practices on the levels of loneliness and anxiety in children in care and care leavers. …Read more

Jane Lewis, author of 'The Challenge of Controlling COVID-19', explains the failures to control the first wave of COVID-19, focusing on the test and trace system and the part played by longstanding structural problems in public health, as well as the government’s reactive, inconsistent and highly-centralised approach.…Read more

Bob Hudson, author of 'Clients, Consumers or Citizens?', writes that, on the face of it, the new NHS white paper’s recoiling from the primacy of competition and markets warrants a warm welcome. Yet reactions have been underwhelming because there is remarkably little detail on how this ambitious mission is going to work.…Read more

Anna Tarrant, Linzi Ladlow and Laura Way talk about the research they’ve done on the effects of the lockdowns on young fathers in the UK.…Read more

Joshua Rozenberg, author of 'Enemies of the People?', discusses whether any UK court would give the government's maximum 10-year prison sentence for lying about where you have travelled from.…Read more

Jonathan Wistow follows up on his article from last year to explain how COVID-19 represents a certain continuity in the operation of the social contract established in response to it. He looks at state intervention, health inequality, the ‘chumocracy’ and private sector contracts. …Read more

Thomas Waldman, author of ‘Vicarious Warfare’, reviews the factors that have coalesced to make vicarious warfare so alluring to today’s US leaders, and outlines the devastating consequences both for ordinary civilians abroad and for US citizens themselves. …Read more

Why are Black and minority ethnic women at particular risk of domestic abuse during lockdown? Launching the report 'Domestic violence during the lockdown: the needs of Black and minoritised communities during the pandemic', Aisha K. Gill and Sundari Anitha outline the issues specific to minority women, from forced marriage, rejection by refuges and reduced contact with support agencies. …Read more