What is social exclusion?

Abstract

It is commonplace now to assert that social exclusion is not a state but a process. It is neither; it is a concept, and a concept which may be more or less useful in describing or explaining reality. Although the term has been current in social policy circles for nearly two decades, it is less than two years since it became prominent in public political discourse in Britain. The term ‘social exclusion’ played almost no part in Labour's pre-election lexicon. Within months, in August 1997, it was a central concept. In December 1997, the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) was set up, for two years in the first instance, based in the Cabinet Office and reporting to the Prime Minister. The aim of the Unit is to develop coordinated policies to address social exclusion, described as ‘joined-up policies for joined-up problems’. It has no spending budget, since its purpose is to make recommendations to the contributory government departments, with a view to directing existing funding more effectively. Part of its brief for 1998 was the development of key indicators of social exclusion, which could be used in evaluating Government policy – and presumably the success of the Unit itself. However, by February 1999, this task had been removed from the Unit as the question of social exclusion became more central to Government policy and Alistair Darling announced a commitment to an annual audit of poverty and social exclusion. The following month, Blair made a further commitment to the abolition of child poverty over a 20-year period, reiterated in his 1999 Conference speech. In October 1999, the Department of Social Security published Opportunity for all: Tackling poverty and social exclusion (DSS, 1999).