A couple of years ago, I was approached about the possibility of writing about the making of the “Spartacus Report”, Responsible Reform. This report took apart the coalition government's arguments for reform of DLA, the first step in their campaign to introduce PIP. It was also the start of a grass-roots policy analysis movement that went on to produce several well-researched, critical reports analysing government proposals – largely pointing out how they were completely misrepresenting some critical facts underpinning their arguments, or under- and over-estimating crucial outcomes.
I was involved towards the end of producing Responsible Reform, contributing a chapter and checking over those contributed by some other people. I was very much involved with some of the subsequent reports produced in the same spirit. The first report, and several later ones, made a tangible impact on several public and parliamentary debates, and even though we didn't have the effect we might have wished, we certainly had more impact than we thought we had any right to realistically hope.
Anyway, I agreed, and after a somewhat drawn out process – sometimes difficult for me, I can struggle with brevity – and I'm sure lots of efforts on the part of our editors, it's scheduled for release. Come the fourth of July, Social Policy First Hand will be available, direct from the publisher (Policy Press in the UK) or from other booksellers (I'm guessing mostly academic ones, but Amazon have it too).
Social policy isn't my area of academia, but my contributions is about the experience, about what we did. Other contributors include campaigning colleagues of mine, and other people who've been “on the ground”, about other experiences. Beyond that, there are also contributions from those with academic backgrounds in the area. I certainly look forward to reading everyone else's contributions when my copy arrives.
(And in case you think I'm just trying to maximise sales for my own good, I don't get any royalty on this; that's how it works when you contribute a chapter to an academic book, I've learned.)