Hayley Bennett
Biographic Data
| ID | 308314 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hayley Bennett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hayley |
| FAMILY NAME | Bennett |
| SIGNATURE | BENNETT H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0659-4033 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 12 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Get Britain Working? Continuity and Change in Labour’s Post-2024 Welfare and Employment Strategy
From manifesto pledges to election victory in 2024, the Labour Party has positioned ‘spiralling economic inactivity’ as the central employment and welfare challenge. This article critically examines Labour’s first year in power, with a focus on employment policies at the intersection of in-work poverty, economic insecurity, and inactivity. We begin by outlining the current labour market context, questioning the narrative underpinning Labour’s wel…
Navigating Digital Welfare
Greater conceptual and empirical engagement with welfare state complexity is needed in studies of digital welfare. This article explores how existing concepts such as welfare systems, subsidiarisation, rescaling and fragmentation can advance our understanding of claimants' digital welfare experiences. Focussing on the United Kingdom—well‐known for its digital welfare approach to Universal Credit—the article demonstrates the need for scholars to l…
An ‘interface first’ welfare state
Devolving digitalisation
Lived experience as evidence in anti-poverty policy making
A participatory turn has occurred in recent years that claims to centre citizens’ voices in knowledge production and policy-making processes. This includes an increasing emphasis on ‘lived experience’ – experiential knowledge of particular social or policy issues – within policy making. This article draws on participatory governance literature to consider the different drivers of the move towards the use of lived experience in policy making, as w…
Public understandings of welfare and the economy
Previous studies have revealed significant gaps in the UK public's knowledge about the welfare state and the economy. However, we know little about which groups of the population know more, and which less. Drawing on survey evidence, we confirm that many people overstimate both the size of unemployment provision and levels of benefit fraud, and also make mistakes when answering factual questions about finance, employment rights, and benefit entit…
Universal Credit
Since 2010, the UK government has transformed social security administration using digital technology and automated instruments to create and deliver a single working-age benefit known as Universal Credit (UC). Social policy scholars have given much attention to the key policy tenets of UC but engaged less with leading aspects of automated and digital delivery and their relationship to different forms of administrative burdens for UC recipients. …
Participation Requests
Democracies are under pressure and public administrations must evolve to accommodate new forms of public participation. Participation processes may reproduce or disrupt existing power inequalities. Through a multi-method empirical study of “Participation Requests,” a new legislative policy tool to open up public services in Scotland, this article addresses an empirical gap on governance-driven democratic innovations (DIs). We use Young’s distinct…
Political and ethical dilemmas in multi-agency participatory research
The 'buffer zone' frames the contested space that university researchers must persistently animate and mediate to successfully pursue participatory research with public and third sector partners. This article explores this conceptualisation through a consideration of political and ethical dilemmas in participatory research practice. We contend that participatory researchers must identify, respond to and reflect on everyday and momentous dilemmas …
Nurturing the buffer zone
There is a shift in university-based social research towards interdisciplinary working and collaboration with non-academic partners, which requires a reconsideration of methodological concepts and research practices. In this article, we draw on intensive collaborative action research (CAR) into public service reform to demonstrate how this 'collaborative shift' both challenges and creates new considerations for mainstream research approaches. We …
Re-examining British Welfare-to-Work Contracting using a Transaction Cost Perspective
This article critically reflects on the administration of activation services in the UK. It describes the welfare-to-work quasi-market and focuses on the impact of 2008 commissioning reforms that advocated amalgamating small contracts into larger 'lots', creating a top tier of prime providers to manage subcontractors, and increasing outcome-based funding. Drawing on transaction cost theory and empirical case study research, it is demonstrated tha…
Best of Both Worlds’? A Comparison of Third Sector Providers in Health Care and Welfare‐to‐Work Markets in Britain
This article compares the welfare markets in primary health care and ‘welfare‐to‐work’ in the UK since the late 1990s. A longitudinal comparison of two different policy areas enables us to study the context in which marketization and the resulting shift of welfare provision takes place. We outline the general background of the market‐based reforms and highlight in what way policymakers have ascribed third sector organizations ( TSOs ) a number of…
Nurturing the buffer zone
There is a shift in university-based social research towards interdisciplinary working and collaboration with non-academic partners, which requires a reconsideration of methodological concepts and research practices. In this article, we draw on intensive collaborative action research (CAR) into public service reform to demonstrate how this 'collaborative shift' both challenges and creates new considerations for mainstream research approaches. We …
Participation Requests
Democracies are under pressure and public administrations must evolve to accommodate new forms of public participation. Participation processes may reproduce or disrupt existing power inequalities. Through a multi-method empirical study of “Participation Requests,” a new legislative policy tool to open up public services in Scotland, this article addresses an empirical gap on governance-driven democratic innovations (DIs). We use Young’s distinct…
Political and ethical dilemmas in multi-agency participatory research
The 'buffer zone' frames the contested space that university researchers must persistently animate and mediate to successfully pursue participatory research with public and third sector partners. This article explores this conceptualisation through a consideration of political and ethical dilemmas in participatory research practice. We contend that participatory researchers must identify, respond to and reflect on everyday and momentous dilemmas …
Re-examining British Welfare-to-Work Contracting using a Transaction Cost Perspective
This article critically reflects on the administration of activation services in the UK. It describes the welfare-to-work quasi-market and focuses on the impact of 2008 commissioning reforms that advocated amalgamating small contracts into larger 'lots', creating a top tier of prime providers to manage subcontractors, and increasing outcome-based funding. Drawing on transaction cost theory and empirical case study research, it is demonstrated tha…
Navigating Digital Welfare
Greater conceptual and empirical engagement with welfare state complexity is needed in studies of digital welfare. This article explores how existing concepts such as welfare systems, subsidiarisation, rescaling and fragmentation can advance our understanding of claimants' digital welfare experiences. Focussing on the United Kingdom—well‐known for its digital welfare approach to Universal Credit—the article demonstrates the need for scholars to l…
Best of Both Worlds’? A Comparison of Third Sector Providers in Health Care and Welfare‐to‐Work Markets in Britain
This article compares the welfare markets in primary health care and ‘welfare‐to‐work’ in the UK since the late 1990s. A longitudinal comparison of two different policy areas enables us to study the context in which marketization and the resulting shift of welfare provision takes place. We outline the general background of the market‐based reforms and highlight in what way policymakers have ascribed third sector organizations ( TSOs ) a number of…
Public understandings of welfare and the economy
Previous studies have revealed significant gaps in the UK public's knowledge about the welfare state and the economy. However, we know little about which groups of the population know more, and which less. Drawing on survey evidence, we confirm that many people overstimate both the size of unemployment provision and levels of benefit fraud, and also make mistakes when answering factual questions about finance, employment rights, and benefit entit…
Universal Credit
Since 2010, the UK government has transformed social security administration using digital technology and automated instruments to create and deliver a single working-age benefit known as Universal Credit (UC). Social policy scholars have given much attention to the key policy tenets of UC but engaged less with leading aspects of automated and digital delivery and their relationship to different forms of administrative burdens for UC recipients. …
Best of Both Worlds’? A Comparison of Third Sector Providers in Health Care and Welfare‐to‐Work Markets in Britain
This article compares the welfare markets in primary health care and ‘welfare‐to‐work’ in the UK since the late 1990s. A longitudinal comparison of two different policy areas enables us to study the context in which marketization and the resulting shift of welfare provision takes place. We outline the general background of the market‐based reforms and highlight in what way policymakers have ascribed third sector organizations ( TSOs ) a number of…
Re-examining British Welfare-to-Work Contracting using a Transaction Cost Perspective
This article critically reflects on the administration of activation services in the UK. It describes the welfare-to-work quasi-market and focuses on the impact of 2008 commissioning reforms that advocated amalgamating small contracts into larger 'lots', creating a top tier of prime providers to manage subcontractors, and increasing outcome-based funding. Drawing on transaction cost theory and empirical case study research, it is demonstrated tha…
Participation Requests
Democracies are under pressure and public administrations must evolve to accommodate new forms of public participation. Participation processes may reproduce or disrupt existing power inequalities. Through a multi-method empirical study of “Participation Requests,” a new legislative policy tool to open up public services in Scotland, this article addresses an empirical gap on governance-driven democratic innovations (DIs). We use Young’s distinct…
Political and ethical dilemmas in multi-agency participatory research
The 'buffer zone' frames the contested space that university researchers must persistently animate and mediate to successfully pursue participatory research with public and third sector partners. This article explores this conceptualisation through a consideration of political and ethical dilemmas in participatory research practice. We contend that participatory researchers must identify, respond to and reflect on everyday and momentous dilemmas …
Nurturing the buffer zone
There is a shift in university-based social research towards interdisciplinary working and collaboration with non-academic partners, which requires a reconsideration of methodological concepts and research practices. In this article, we draw on intensive collaborative action research (CAR) into public service reform to demonstrate how this 'collaborative shift' both challenges and creates new considerations for mainstream research approaches. We …
Public understandings of welfare and the economy
Previous studies have revealed significant gaps in the UK public's knowledge about the welfare state and the economy. However, we know little about which groups of the population know more, and which less. Drawing on survey evidence, we confirm that many people overstimate both the size of unemployment provision and levels of benefit fraud, and also make mistakes when answering factual questions about finance, employment rights, and benefit entit…
Universal Credit
Since 2010, the UK government has transformed social security administration using digital technology and automated instruments to create and deliver a single working-age benefit known as Universal Credit (UC). Social policy scholars have given much attention to the key policy tenets of UC but engaged less with leading aspects of automated and digital delivery and their relationship to different forms of administrative burdens for UC recipients. …
Navigating Digital Welfare
Greater conceptual and empirical engagement with welfare state complexity is needed in studies of digital welfare. This article explores how existing concepts such as welfare systems, subsidiarisation, rescaling and fragmentation can advance our understanding of claimants' digital welfare experiences. Focussing on the United Kingdom—well‐known for its digital welfare approach to Universal Credit—the article demonstrates the need for scholars to l…
An ‘interface first’ welfare state
Devolving digitalisation
Lived experience as evidence in anti-poverty policy making
A participatory turn has occurred in recent years that claims to centre citizens’ voices in knowledge production and policy-making processes. This includes an increasing emphasis on ‘lived experience’ – experiential knowledge of particular social or policy issues – within policy making. This article draws on participatory governance literature to consider the different drivers of the move towards the use of lived experience in policy making, as w…
Get Britain Working? Continuity and Change in Labour’s Post-2024 Welfare and Employment Strategy
From manifesto pledges to election victory in 2024, the Labour Party has positioned ‘spiralling economic inactivity’ as the central employment and welfare challenge. This article critically examines Labour’s first year in power, with a focus on employment policies at the intersection of in-work poverty, economic insecurity, and inactivity. We begin by outlining the current labour market context, questioning the narrative underpinning Labour’s wel…
Economics (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Welfare (8 works) · Business (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Market economy (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (6 works) · Public economics (5 works)